ShmoopTube

00:03

Here’s your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by spider glue.

00:07

Giving Gorilla Glue a run for its monkey...we mean, money.

00:22

How would you correct this underlined segment from the passage, if at all?

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There is?

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And here are the potential answers...

00:33

There’s no apparent rhyme or reason to these answer choices; we’ll have to jump right in.

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Let’s begin by nixing option (B).

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The word “maybe” is redundant since the word that follows is “perhaps.”

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These words mean the same basic thing, so there’s no need for both.

00:48

People who say maybe and perhaps in the same sentence must be really unsure of themselves.

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Answer (C) is both needlessly wordy and in the wrong tense.

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The phrase “What has been” is in the present perfect tense, while the rest of the sentence

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is in the simple present.

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Unless a writer thinks it’s fun to confuse the reader, it’s usually a bad idea to randomly shift tenses.

01:06

Option (C) is a definite no.

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(A) thinks it’s a good idea to begin the sentence with “There is,” but we have to disagree.

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Plunking these two words at the top of the sentence is a bad idea because they hijack

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the positions of subject and verb.

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This sentence already has a subject and verb--“part” and another “is”--

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so there’s no need for any more.

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This leaves us with choice (D), the correct answer.

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The best thing to do is omit the underlined segment entirely.

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We advise the sentence to cut its losses and move on with its life.

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It might be difficult at first, but with time the healing will come.

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