Answers to Complete Sentence Problems
a incomplete. Did you zero in on sighing? That’s part of a verb (a present participle, if you
absolutely have to know), but all by itself it isn’t enough to fill the verb category. Likewise, if
you try to pair sighing with a subject, the only candidate is Duke. Duke is sighing would be a
match, but Duke sighing isn’t. No subject/verb pair, no sentence.
b Dogcatcher (S)/fed (V). Start with a verb search. Any action or being verbs? Yes, fed. Now ask
who or what fed. Bingo: dogcatcher fed. You have a good subject/verb match.
c Duke (S)/snarfed (V), woofed (V). Your verb search (always the best first step) yields two,
snarfed and woofed. Who snarfed and woofed? Duke. There you go — an acceptable subject/
verb pair.
d Duke (S)/is (V). Were you tricked by entered? Entered may be a verb in some sentences, but in
this one it isn’t, because it has no subject. But is does have a subject, Duke.
e incomplete. Something’s missing here: a subject and a verb! What you have, in grammarspeak,
is a participle, a part of a verb, but not enough to satisfy the subject/verb rule.
f Duke (S)/sleeps (V). Start with a verb search, and you immediately come up with sleeps, which,
by the way, is an action verb, even though sleeping seems like the opposite of action. Who
sleeps? Duke, bless her snoring little self.
g incomplete. You have some action — having eaten — but no subject. Penalty box!
h incomplete. The sentence has action (biting), but when you ask who’s biting, you get no answer,
because one biting is a mismatch.
i vet (S)/is (V). No action in this one, but is expresses being, so you’re covered on the verb front.
Who or what is? The vet is.
j Who (S)/would be (V). Are you surprised to see who as a subject? In a question, who often fills
that role.
k incomplete. A quick glance tells you that you have a verb form (surprised), but no subject.
l incomplete. Another verb form (sniffing) is easy to find here, but when you ask who is doing
the sniffing, you come up blank. Truffle sniffing doesn’t match.
m incomplete. In this one you have a subject, Toto, but no matching verb. True, the statement
talks about running, jumping, and sleeping, but those aren’t matches for Toto. (If you care,
they’re actually nouns functioning as objects of the preposition in.)
n Duke (S)/is guided (V). Start with a verb search. Any action or being verbs? Yes, is guided.
Now ask who or what is guided. Bingo: Duke is guided. You have a good subject/verb match.
o Duke (S)/loves (V). A verb hunt gives you loves, and asking that universal question (who loves?)
yields Duke loves. Bingo — a subject/verb pair and a legal sentence.
p incomplete. Dogcatcher Charlie makes a fine subject, but in this one he’s not matched with a
verb. The two verb forms in the statement, covered and catching, describe Charlie. (They’re participles,
if you like these grammar terms.) Neither makes a good match. Charlie covered sounds
like a match, but the meaning here is incorrect because Charlie isn’t performing the action of
covering. Charlie catching sounds like a mismatch because it is.
60 Part I: Laying Out the Concrete Slab: Grammar Basics
q Truffle (S), Duke (S)/sniffed (V). First, find the verb. If you sniff around this sentence looking
for an action word, you come up with sniffed. Now ask, Who sniffed? Bingo: Truffle and Duke
sniffed. A good compound (double) subject for a good verb — you’re all set with a complete
sentence.
r dogs (S)/sped (V). This one may have surprised you because the subjects follow the verb —
an unusual, but perfectly fine position. If you follow the normal procedure (locating the verb
and asking who did the action), you find dogs, even though they appear last in the sentence.
s incomplete. This statement contains a verb form, stopping, but no subject matches it. Verdict:
ten years in the grammar penitentiary for failure to complete the sentence.
t They (S)/lapped (V). The action here is lapped, which unites nicely with they. Completeness
rules!
u incomplete. The reader is waiting to hear something about the cow. The way the sentence
reads now, you have a description of cow — who used to work for NASA until she got fed up
with the bureaucracy — but no action word to tell the reader what the cow is doing.
v complete. The sentence tells you everything you need to know, so it’s complete.
w complete. The question makes sense as is, so the sentence is complete.
x incomplete. The statement gives you an idea — milking — and some descriptions but never
delivers with a complete thought about milking.
y complete. Short, but you have everything you need to know about the protesting cow.
A incomplete. The word because implies a cause-and-effect relationship, but the sentence
doesn’t supply all the needed information.
B incomplete. What did the mama cow do when she was only a calf? The sentence doesn’t actually
say, so it’s incomplete.
C incomplete. Not enough information appears in this sentence, which, by the way, also lacks a
subject/verb pair.
D complete. All you need to know about moon-jumping (that it’s enough for any cow) is in the
sentence.
E complete. This sentence contains enough information to reform NASA, should it indeed choose
to enter the field of moon-jumping.
F incomplete. The sentence begins to make a statement about sheep but then veers off into a
description (which were once rejected from moon duty). No other thought is ever attached to
sheep, so the sentence is incomplete.
G complete. This question makes sense as is. You may wonder what NASA will do, but you won’t
wonder what’s being asked here because the question — and the sentence — is complete.
H incomplete. The first part of the sentence is a description, and the second is a qualifier,
explaining a condition (though female sheep produce milk). Neither of these two parts is a
complete thought, so the sentence is incomplete.
I complete. You have everything you need to know here except why anyone would want to send
sheep to