Hardest English Test Question For College Prep

I thought the initiation was

Spoiler: Initiation

ETA. Don't tell the n00bs!

 

This sentence is a doozie, so I'm tempted to break it up and add a couple details.

We talked easily that day. It was just like my childhood, when we would sit atop the old rabbit hutch in the field behind Joan's house, talking about friends and our hopes for the future.

 

We talked (just as easily as we had in the past when we sat in the field behind Joan’s house atop the rabbit hutch) and discussed our friends and our hopes for the future.

F*** SPAG

 

Answer: We talked just as easily as we had in the past, when we would sit atop the rabbit hutch in the field behind Joan's house and discuss our friends and our hopes for the future.


Original:

We talked just as easily as we had in the past, when we would sit in the field behind Joan’s house atop the rabbit hutch and discuss our friends and our hopes for the future.

Explanation: It's about fixing misplaced modifiers.

Since it was on the ACT here is how it was presented.

1. NO CHANGE
2. in the field atop the rabbit hutch behind Joan’s house
3. atop the rabbit hutch in the field behind Joan’s house **
   
4. behind Joan’s house in the field atop the rabbit hutch

 

"The Shatner comma," later succeeded by the "Walken ellipsis":
"Five long years he wore this watch... up his ass. Then... he died of dysentery... He give me the watch... ... I hid this uncomfortable hunk of metal up my ass... two years... Then... after seven years... I was sent home to my family. Now... ... ... ... Little man... ... I give the watch to you."

 

Yeah, or you could become a James Joyce Wannabe, and use no punctuation at all.

I'm struggling with this 'assignment' because I'm not sure what the rules are. Is this just a punctuation test, or are we allowed to completely rewrite the thing?

 

That's part of Christopher Walken's monologue from Pulp Fiction. He speaks as if there were random ellipses scattered throughout his script.

If you want one to correct, punctuate this:
that that is is that that is not is not is that it it is
There are four answers, but only one that make total syntactic sense in my opinion.

 

What? I wanna know. Tell me! Tell me! Tell me!

 

Aaargh. No. Brain not up to that one. More coffee.

 

Your first version is excellent, in my opinion. It reads smoothly, but retains all the information from the original mess.

 

I posted the answer but some seemed to have missed it.