 There’s no substitute for a comprehensive review of Standard Written English, but as I’ve taught English over the past several years I have found that there are a handful of skills that nearly all of my students require help relearning. I present here my attempt to hash some of these skills out, and I’ve happily narrowed it down to five. But, before getting to the good stuff, why not a quick skills check? Answers are listed right afterwards; no peeking! 1. Despite bankruptcy rumors the staff at the marketing firm continued showing up for work. A. NO CHANGE B. bankruptcy rumors; the staff C. bankruptcy rumors – the staff D. bankruptcy rumors, the staff 2. Joselyn unexpectedly decided to see the new horror film. Everyone knows they hate scary movies! A. NO CHANGE B. they all hate C. she hates D. I hate 3. Not one of the many colorful machines with flashing lights were a pinball machine. A. NO CHANGE B. were an actual C. would have been an actual D. was a 4. As a six year-old girl, Jane would sit by the window for hours, wishing and hoping for the rain to stop A. NO CHANGE B. Wishing C. Wishing and yearning D. Wishing and hoping without end 5. After moving to Colorado, Zack decided to hike, go fishing, and skis. A. NO CHANGE B. to hike, fish, and ski. C. to go hiking, fish, and ski. D. hiking, fishing, and skiing. Answer Key: 1. D, 2. C, 3. D, 4. B, 5. B How well did you score? Each of these problems highlight a specific English language skill, and it’s absolutely worth discussing each of these skills more in depth. Punctuation In Standard Written English there are dozens of rules governing punctuation marks. Sometimes the only difference between two answer choices is the placement of a single apostrophe; while it can be tricky, mastery of these straightforward rules means you will always get these questions correct and inevitably improve your score! Let’s look at the example from before: Despite bankruptcy rumors the staff at the marketing firm continued showing up for work. The underlined portion screams of a punctuation error! Standard Written English tells us that a comma should always be placed after the introductory element of a sentence, in this case “Despite bankruptcy rumors...” Consider our answer choices again: A. NO CHANGE B. bankruptcy rumors; the staff C. bankruptcy rumors – the staff D. bankruptcy rumors, the staff A student well-versed in punctuation rules would arrive at choice D. Even if this student were not entirely confident in their answer, they would easily be able to eliminate the other answer choices. Choice A leaves the sentence without a needed break, choice B incorrectly uses a semicolon, and choice C incorrectly uses a dash. Parts of Speech: Pronouns Understanding the role of different elements of English speech – verbs, pronouns, conjunctions, prepositions, interjections – is crucial! Oftentimes, students with experience writing are able to compose sentences and paragraphs without serious consideration of their parts of speech. That is because as students mature as English-speakers, they develop a natural “flow” and work quickly to put their thoughts together. Here is our example from above: Joselyn unexpectedly decided to see the new horror film. Everyone knows they hate scary movies! The pronoun “they” and the verb “hate” are underlined. Many students might read this sentence and think no error exists here, but the rules governing pronoun cases are very clear. “They” is a plural pronoun, but what is “they” intended to replace? It is intended to replace to proper noun Joselyn, but Joselyn is a singular feminine noun, and so the singular feminine pronoun “she” is the only acceptable pronoun to use here… A. NO CHANGE B. they all hate C. she hates D. I hate … so we know that C would be the only acceptable answer. (Note too that the verb “hate” must be changed to accommodate the newly singular pronoun.) Parts of Speech: Verbs Verb forms require a similar level of meticulousness. The key to successfully addressing both pronoun and verb errors is to identify the subject of the sentence. Here’s the example again: Not one of the many colorful machines with flashing lights were a pinball machine. A. NO CHANGE B. were an actual C. would have been an actual D. was a This shows perfectly why you should always identify the true subject! The verb “were” (past-tense of the verb “to be”) is in plural form, and here lies the error. The descriptors “many colorful machines” and “flashing lights” mislead us towards the plural verb, but we actually need to go further back to identify the true subject, “Not one,” which is a singular subject. Because our subject is singular, we need to verb form to be singular. This is why we should arrive at answer choice D. Notice, if we took out all of our extra descriptors, our subject-predicate would read “Not one was a pinball machine.” which is perfectly acceptable. Answer choice C uses the correct verb form but is needlessly wordy. Speaking of wordiness… Wordiness and Redundancy Less is more! Standard Written English is clear and concise, meaning ideas are presented as clearly as possible and in as few words as possible. Good writing always includes appropriate details and imagery, but filling a text with unnecessary words results in clunky and awkward-sounding sentences where the main point becomes lost. Even if an answer choice is technically correct, it can still be an incorrect answer choice on the grounds of wordiness or redundancy. As a six year-old girl, Jane would sit by the window for hours, wishing and hoping for the rain to stop A. NO CHANGE B. Wishing C. Wishing and yearning D. Wishing and hoping without end Underlined here is an example of a redundancy error. “Wishing” and “hoping” have nearly identical meanings in this context, and so to use both words makes the sentence needlessly wordier. Ideally you would arrive at answer choice B. Not only is it the clearest and most concise answer choice, but all of the other answer choices here add unnecessary words, answer choice D being the worst culprit. It’s okay to let your eyes gravitate towards the answer choices with the fewest words; as long as no crucial or unique details are being left out, these often turn out to be the correct choice! Parallelism Elements in a series, or list, must match in tense/form. Not sure what that means? See if you can spot the parallelism error here, in our example from above: After moving to Colorado, Zack decided to hike, go fishing, and skis. This sentence has a series with three elements: “to hike,” “go fishing,” and “skis.” There are three verbs, but they are all in different forms. To hike: infinite verb form Go fishing: present-perfect verb tense Skis: basic present tense Standard Written English dictates these three elements must match, and so we would choose an answer choice that provides three matching elements. A. NO CHANGE B. to hike, fish, and ski. C. to go hiking, fish, and ski. D. hiking, fishing, and skiing. Answer choice B provides us with three verbs, in infinite form, that match. It’s important to note that articles (a/an/the) and elements such as “to” must match a certain way as well. Either they must be placed before each specific element, or listed only before the first one. So, our correct answer choice also could have been written as “to hike, to fish, and to ski.” Also, while answer choice D provides us with three verbs in present-perfect tense, but that tense does not match the way the rest of the preceding sentence is written. In conclusion… Self-teaching is easier than ever before, but there is no replacement for an experienced teacher who is driven to help you achieve your goals. I would highly recommend enrolling in a tutoring program today to help prepare you for your next standardized test. As you plan for your future, keep in mind that that universities continue to use standardized test scores to quickly differentiate between thousands of applicants. If you hope to be a competitive college applicant, it is never too early to begin preparing yourself! Alex, iLearn Academy ACT Instructor 
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Categories |
RSS Feed
We make a personal commitment to ensure each student is well-prepared for the academic school year.
|
|
Dedicated to helping your student succeed.