A third-grade teacher reviews a student's composition for errors. Which of the following sentences from the student's composition demonstrates an error in syntax?

• A. With my friend my vacation I went to the beach on.
• B. I Swam To The Beach And So Did My Best Friend.
• C. In The Sun We Ate Soft Ice Cream At The Beach.
• D. I Had Fun Swimming With The Beach.

Answer: (A)

Syntax is about how the words in a sentence are arranged to show who is doing what and where or when it happens. A sentence must have a clear subject and verb in the right order, with any extra details fitting smoothly after them.

The sentence that shows an error has words put in an odd order, and it ends with an unnecessary preposition, making the meaning hard to follow. Reading it, you can see the intended action doesn’t clearly connect: “With my friend my vacation I went to the beach on.” A natural, correct arrangement would be something like: “I went on vacation with my friend to the beach.” Here the subject comes first, the verb follows, and the prepositional phrases are arranged in a way that clearly conveys meaning.

The other sentences demonstrate proper syntax in structure: they have a clear subject and verb and place phrases in a way that makes sense (even though capitalization is nonstandard in one of them, the sentence structure itself is correct). The fourth option uses an awkward preposition choice, but the main, most obvious syntax issue is the first sentence’s word order, which disrupts the sentence’s readability and meaning.