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Modifier placement

Make sure a descriptive opening phrase attaches to the noun it is actually meant to describe.

Standard English ConventionsReading and Writing
Practice modifier placement free

What the SAT actually asks

You fix or avoid a dangling or misplaced modifier. The typical question opens with a descriptive phrase followed by a comma, then leaves a blank for the start of the main clause. Whatever noun you put right after the comma is what the opening phrase describes, so the answer choices differ mainly in which noun lands in that position. The phrase must logically describe that noun. Some questions instead move a single adverb and ask which placement gives the intended meaning.

Modifier questions usually appear about 1 to 2 times among the 54 reading and writing questions.

Where students lose points

How to attack these questions

  1. 1Read the opening phrase and name out loud who or what it describes before you look at the choices.
  2. 2Check the very first noun in each choice and keep only the choice where that noun matches.
  3. 3Read the finished sentence literally and ask whether it states something absurd.

Example questions

Written for this skill, with the answer explained. 31 more are in the app.

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Modifier placement
Real question

While still a medical student in Salvador, ______

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

Easier

Working from a single surviving page of the original score, ______

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

  • A) the missing movements were reconstructed by musicologist Feride Aksoy.
  • B) musicologist Feride Aksoy reconstructed the missing movements in six years. ✓
  • C) reconstruction of the missing movements took musicologist Feride Aksoy six years.
  • D) six years were required for the missing movements to be reconstructed.

Why: "Working from a single surviving page of the original score" describes the person doing that work, so Feride Aksoy has to be the subject of the main clause. Answering "the missing movements were reconstructed by musicologist Feride Aksoy." makes the movements the ones working from the page. Answering "reconstruction of the missing movements took musicologist Feride Aksoy six years." puts the reconstruction in the subject slot, so the reconstruction did the working. Answering "six years were required for the missing movements to be reconstructed." makes a span of six years the one working from the score.

Medium

Cast in bronze rather than carved in stone, ______

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

  • A) the figure could have an outstretched arm far thinner than stone would allow. ✓
  • B) the studio could produce the figure in a single pour.
  • C) the sculptor was able to make the figure's outstretched arm unusually thin.
  • D) it was possible to give the figure a very thin outstretched arm.

Why: "Cast in bronze rather than carved in stone" describes the object made, so the figure has to be the subject of the main clause. Answering "the sculptor was able to make the figure's outstretched arm unusually thin." makes the sculptor the thing cast in bronze. Answering "the studio could produce the figure in a single pour." puts the studio in that position instead. Answering "it was possible to give the figure a very thin outstretched arm." uses an empty "it" as the subject, which names nothing that could have been cast.

Medium

A former whaling captain who had lost two fingers to a harpoon ______ for twenty years on the strength of a single storm, and the storm grew worse in every printed version of the talk. A Boston paper counted eleven versions of the storm between 1841 and 1859.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

  • A) line, Obed Macy lectured ✓
  • B) line, the lectures drew crowds
  • C) line, Obed Macy's memoir sold
  • D) line, there was a lecture tour

Why: "A former whaling captain who had lost two fingers to a harpoon line" is an appositive, so the subject that follows has to be the captain himself, which is why "line, Obed Macy lectured" is the one that completes the sentence. "line, Obed Macy's memoir sold" attaches the description to the memoir instead of to the man who wrote it and lost the fingers. "line, the lectures drew crowds" makes the lectures themselves the former whaling captain, which they obviously were not. "line, there was a lecture tour" leaves the opening description with no person at all for it to describe.

Questions students ask

What is a dangling modifier?

It is an opening descriptive phrase whose intended subject never appears right after the comma, so it attaches to the wrong noun. The sentence then literally says something the writer did not mean, such as a piece of equipment performing a human action.

How do I fix a dangling modifier?

Put the noun the phrase actually describes immediately after the comma, then build the rest of the clause around it. On the SAT you do this by choosing the answer whose first noun matches the opening phrase rather than by rewriting.

Does the modifier always come at the beginning of a sentence?

No, but that is the most commonly tested position. Modifiers can also sit next to the noun they describe in the middle of a sentence, and questions about words like only test whether the modifier is placed next to the element it is meant to limit.

Drill this skill until it is automatic

Questions on modifier placement alone, with explanations on every one, and the app tracks which ones you keep missing.

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