7th Grade ELA Final Exam
Final Exam Study Guide
Dependent and Independent Clauses
An independent clause is a group of words that can stand on its own as a sentence: it has a subject, a verb, and is a complete thought.
Examples:
· He ran. (Notice that while this sentence only contains two words, it is still a complete sentence because it contains a one word subject and a one word predicate that is also a complete thought.)
· He ran fast.
· I was late to work.
A dependent clause is a group of words that also contains a subject and a verb, but it is not a complete thought. Because it is not a complete thought, a dependent clause cannot stand on its own as a sentence; it is dependent on being attached to an independent clause to form a sentence. REMEMBER DEPENDENT CLAUSES CONTAIN AN AAAWWWUUBBIST.
Examples:
· Because I woke up late this morning… (what happened?)
· When we arrived in class… (what occurred?)
· If my neighbor does not pay his rent on time… (what will happen?)
A simple sentence consists of an independent clause, so it contains a subject and a verb.
It does NOT contain either a dependent clause or another simple sentence.
Examples of simple sentences
Short simple sentence: The dog barked.
A compound sentence consists of two or more simple sentences joined by (1) a comma followed by a coordinating conjunction (and, but, or, nor, for, yet, so): The dog barked, and the cat yowled, or (2) a semicolon: The dog barked; the cat yowled.
Examples of compound sentences
We are going to the park, so we can play tennis.
I am so hungry; I think I could eat a horse.
A complex sentence consists of a combination of an independent clause and a dependent clause (subordinate clause with an AAAWWWUUBBIST)
Examples of complex sentences:
Although I haven’t been to Canada, I have heard it is beautiful.
We are going on vacation because it is summertime.
ALSO STUDY: theme vs. main idea, figurative language (alliteration, metaphor, simile, personification, hyperbole, and idiom), text structures, author’s purpose (to inform/explain, to persuade, and to entertain), and the parts of plot.