The grammar section will focus on a broad range of common mistakes made in writing. Some common grammatical principles to know before going into the exam include the following:
- Subject-verb agreement
- Common punctuation, such as periods, commas, apostrophes, and semicolons
- Proper sentence structure
- Capitalization
- Understanding nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs and their purpose
- Understanding Present vs. Past vs. Future tense
- Misplaced and dangling modifiers
- The proper use of pronouns, such as “Me vs. I”
The questions will usually give you a sentence or paragraph where a grammatical error exists. You must figure out which option includes a mistake. Here is an example:
Example 1
For the following sentence, select the underlined part that contains an error in grammatical construction, punctuation, or word choice:
Dixie plays softball yesterday with her best friend, Jasmine. After the game, they got some ice cream and both ate different flavors. When they arrived home, they both agreed they would go again tomorrow.
- Plays
- Ate
- Arrived
- They would go
This is an example of using the proper tense in a sentence. The key word here is “yesterday,” so when discussing these events, they should be written in the past tense. Therefore, “plays,” which is written in the present tense, should be changed to past tense. “They would go” is an exception here because they are talking about what they will do tomorrow. Therefore, it is written in the proper tense here.
Here is another example:
Example 2
My friend Lisa likes to cook. Her favorite meal to make is lasagna. I enjoys going over there every Saturday to taste her delicious meal. Next time I have her over, I am going to make my favorite meal for her, chicken marsala.
- LIkes
- To Make
- I enjoys
- I have her
The answer here is C, “I enjoys.” This is a simple mistake in subject-verb agreement. It should read “I enjoy.” The rest of the instances in this paragraph have agreements between the subject and the verb.
The coming section will cover other errors in grammatical usage, so be sure to understand some of the common principles below.