English review

1
English review
2

• How many questions?
• 75
• How long is it?
• 45 minutes 9 minutes/passage
• What does it test?
• Standard Written English which is different from
  conversation

3

• What concepts are covered?
• Usage and Mechanics
• punctuation
• commas
• apostrophes
• colons/semi-colons
• parentheses/dashes
• periods/question marks/explanation pts
• In your choices, the words will usually be the
  same, but the punctuation will be different

4

• What concepts are covered, continued
• Grammar and Usage
• Subject/verb agreement
• Pronoun antecedent agreement
• Adjective/adverb usage with nouns and pronouns
• Verb tenses
• Pronoun forms/cases
• Comparative/superlative modifiers
• Idioms

5

• What concepts are covered, continued
• Sentence structure
• subordinate/dependent clauses
• run-on sentences
• comma splices
• sentence fragments
• misplaced modifiers
• shifts in construction

6

• What concepts are covered, continued
• Rhetorical skills
• writing strategies
• purpose of writing
• organization
• order of sentences
• coherence/clarity of paragraphs
• unity of paragraphs
• style of writing
• word choice tone, clarity, economy

7

• Final clues to the English test
• Read _____ passages
• five
• Answer _____ questions on each
• fifteen
• Allow _____ minutes per passage
• nine

8

• Final reminders continued
• Read to the end of the sentences and maybe the
  sentence beyond the question to discover the
  relationship between sentences/ideas
• Substitute each option to discover the best
  one
• Check your answers

9
Redundancy (Repeating)

• If choices all say the same thing, choose the
  shortest answer
• Unnecessary and unessential
• Unnecessary
• Not necessary and not needed
• Not necessary and decidedly unessential

10
Specific Example

• It the question asks you to provide a specific
  example, choose the answer that is the most
  descriptive
• Red resisted giving up the couch and bed
• Red disappointed Andrew
• Red caused some difficulties
• Red objected

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Yes/No Questions

• When you are given the yes/no question, decide
  yes or no before reading any of the responses.
  Then read only the two that pertain and judge
  their ideas only.
• A. Yes, . . .
• B. Yes, . . .
• C. No, . . .
• D. No, . . .

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Similar Answers

• If answers are similar, they cancel each other
  out and cant be the right answer
• If a question asks which one would NOT work
  look for the oddball!
• When
• After
• Soon
• Because
• When, after, soon time
• Because cause/effect

13
Active / Passive Voice

• Stay in the active voice
• She was elected by her peers. (passive)
• Passive has the people doing the action stuck in
  a prepositional phrase
• Her peers elected her president. (active)

14
Verb Tenses

• Tense of verbs must be consistent
• Check the verb in the sentence above the one that
  is in the question make sure the one you choose
  is the same tense
• Present
• Past
• Future

15
Parallel Structures

• Parallel structure
• Keep items in a list in the same grammatical
  structure
• Lounge, sleep, eating
• Lounge, sleep, eat
• Lounge, sleep, to eat
• Lounge, sleep, is eating
• I used up all of my money riding the roller
  coaster and playing the carnival games.

16
Modifiers

• Watch for dangling and misplaced modifiers
• Rounding the corner of the track, my shoe fell
  off. WRONG!!! The shoe is the subject of the
  sentence and the phrase. The shoe rounded the
  track??? Instead, use . . .
• As I rounded the track, my shoe fell off.
• My shoe fell off as I rounded the track.

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Comparative/Superlative forms

• Most fastest NO!
• More faster NO!
• Redundant!
• Dont use est with most
• Dont use er with more
• Use most or est when comparing 3 or more
• Use more or er when comparing 2
• Use neither when discussing only 1

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Pronoun agreement

• Pronouns must agree with the nouns they are
  replacing in sex and number
• Jane she (sex/gender)
• Tom and Jerry we (number)
• Students they (number)

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Punctuation

• Punctuation
• If a semicolon is used, you must have a complete
  sentence on the left and right hand side. Sub
  verb sub verb
• A colon is used to introduce a formal list. The
  following students need to go the office Jim,
  John, etc.
• No colon after a verb. The following students
  include Jim, John, etc.
• Cant join two sentences with just a comma!
• I went to the game, then I went to Joeys house.
• Comma splices!
• For miscellaneous commas, listen for the natural
  pause if you pause, put in a comma and youll
  be right most of the time

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Contractions

• Dont get the easy ones wrong!
• Its it is
• Whos who is
• Theyre they are
• Youre you are
• These are all two words!!!!!

21
Tone

• Check the tone/style of the passage
• informal 1st person
• formal 3rd person
• answers should be consistent with
  tone
• When the passage asks you to whether or not a new
  sentence or phrase should be added, make sure the
  tone matches the rest of the passage.

22
Irrelevant information

• Many yes/no questions include irrelevant info in
  the options. AVOID irrelevant info!!!

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Strategy

• Read the passage from the very beginning to the
  end of the sentence that has an underlined
  section.
• Reread the underlined phrase with each option in
  its place unless the answer is obvious to you.
• Then read from the underlined part to the end of
  the next sentence with an underlined part.

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• Mary Francis Kennedy Fisher said in the beginning
  of her first collection of essays, Serve it
  Forth, Now I am going to write a book. It will
  be about eating and about what to eat and about
  people who eat. But their work was much more
  than that.

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Final reminders

• Read to the end of the sentences before answering
  the question sometimes beyond if they ask for
  relationships between sentences
• When they ask you to add sentences, need to place
  each option in the correct place. Read the
  sentence before, then the sentence you are
  adding, and then the after it. All three must
  make sense together
• Substitute each option to discover the best
  one
• Always guess!
• Check your answers if time permits