ShmoopTube

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Here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by the dictionary.

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The very definition of...well, we'd have to look it up.

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How should you change the underlined portion below, if at all?

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The dictionary can be used for these purposes: to find word meanings, pronunciations, correct

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spellings, and look up irregular verbs.

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This question is trying to trick us, but we weren't born yesterday.

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It wants to fool us by using the word "correct," which can be used both as a verb and an adjective.

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For example, we might say: "It can cause awkward situations when my iPhone incorrectly corrects

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my texts."

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On the other hand, an example of "correct" being used as an adjective might be: "I sent

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her the correct spelling, so I don't know why she's still freaking out."

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See how "correct" there was an adjective to modify "spelling?"

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Our sample sentence presents us with a list of items that kinda look like they start with verbs.

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"Find" and "look" are both verbs and "correct" can be a verb as well, but wait a minute...

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"Pronunciations" is a noun. Since it's not underlined, we know the ACT won't let us change it.

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The laws of parallel construction tell us that everything in this list needs to match.

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So if "pronunciations" is a noun, then every other item on the list needs to be, too.

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What can we say? Parallel construction loves conformity.

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Now that we've established that the original sentence is irreparably flawed, we can go

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ahead and cross out choice (A).

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We're now sure that "correct" is probably intended as an adjective, describing the noun

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"spellings," and that the verb "look" doesn't belong at all.

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We can also quickly eliminate (B) and (D) because both present us with a variation of

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"looking up" verbs, which makes the last item an action, not a noun.

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Man, these options are dropping like flies.

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We're now left with choice (C), which steers clear of verbs and only gives us nouns.

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Looks like right now is the perfect time to buy some property in Noun Town.

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