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Exercise in Identifying Sentences by Structure

This document provides an exercise to identify four types of sentences: simple, compound, complex, and compound-complex. It lists sentences from Shel Silverstein poems and asks the reader to identify the sentence structure of each. The answers are then provided.

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1K views3 pages

Exercise in Identifying Sentences by Structure

This document provides an exercise to identify four types of sentences: simple, compound, complex, and compound-complex. It lists sentences from Shel Silverstein poems and asks the reader to identify the sentence structure of each. The answers are then provided.

Uploaded by

ZUPP
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Exercise in Identifying Sentences by

Structure
Identifying Simple, Compound, Complex, and Compound-
Complex Sentences
In terms of structure, sentences can be classified in four ways:

Simple (one independent clause)


Compound (at least two independent clauses)
Complex (an independent clause and at least one dependent clause)
Compound-complex (two or more independent clauses and at least one
dependent clause)

This exercise will give you practice in identifying these four sentence structures.

INSTRUCTIONS

The sentences in this exercise have been adapted from poems in two books by Shel
Silverstein: Where the Sidewalk Ends (HarperCollins, 1974) and Falling
Up (HarperCollins, 1996).

Identify each of the following sentences as simple, compound, complex, or compound-


complex. When you're done, compare your responses to the correct answers.

1. I made an airplane out of stone.("Stone Airplane")


2. I put a piece of cantaloupe underneath the microscope.("Nope")
3. Oaties stay oaty, and Wheat Chex stay floaty, and nothing can take the puff out of
Puffed Rice.("Cereal")
4. While fishing in the blue lagoon, I caught a lovely silver fish.("The Silver Fish")
5. They say if you step on a crack, you will break your mother's back.("Sidewalking")
6. They just had a contest for scariest mask, and I was the wild and daring one
who won the contest for scariest mask--and (sob) I'm not
even wearing one.("Best Mask?")
7. My voice was raspy, rough, and cracked.("Little Hoarse")
8. I opened my eyes and looked up at the rain, and it dripped in my head and flowed
into my brain.("Rain")
9. They say that once in Zanzibar a boy stuck out his tongue so far that it reached
the heavens and touched a star, which burned him rather badly.("The Tongue
Sticker-Outer")

1. I'm going to Camp Wonderful beside Lake Paradise across from Blissful
Mountain in the Valley of the Nice.("Camp Wonderful")
2. I joke with the bats and have intimate chats with the cooties who crawl through
my hair.("The Dirtiest Man in the World")
3. The animals snarled and screeched and growled and whinnied and whimpered
and hooted and howled and gobbled up the whole ice cream stand.("Ice Cream
Stop")

1. The antlers of a standing moose, as everybody knows, are just the perfect place to
hang your wet and drippy clothes.("A Use for a Moose")
2. We'll walk with a walk that is measured and slow, and we'll go where the chalk-
white arrows go.("Where the Sidewalk Ends")
3. If I had a brontosaurus, I would name him Horace or Morris.("If I Had a
Brontosaurus")
4. I am writing these poems from inside a lion, and it's rather dark in here.("It's
Dark in Here")
5. A piece of sky broke off and fell through the crack in the ceiling right into my
soup.("Sky Seasoning")
6. The grungy, grumpy, grouchy Giant grew tired of his frowny pout and hired me
and Lee to lift the corners of his crumblin' mouth.("The Smile Makers")
7. If you were only one inch tall, you'd ride a worm to school.("One Inch Tall")
8. The traffic light simply would not turn green, so the people stopped to wait as the
traffic rolled and the wind blew cold, and the hour grew dark and late.("Traffic
Light")

ANSWERS

1. simple sentence
2. simple sentence
3. compound sentence
4. complex sentence
5. complex sentence
6. compound-complex sentence
7. simple sentence
8. compound sentence
9. complex sentence
10. simple sentence
11. complex sentence
12. simple sentence
13. complex sentence
14. compound-complex sentence

1. complex sentence
2. compound sentence
3. simple sentence
4. simple sentence
5. complex sentence
6. compound-complex sentence

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