{"id":3484,"date":"2013-08-05T13:43:12","date_gmt":"2013-08-05T13:43:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/testpreparations.com\/help\/?p=3484"},"modified":"2014-12-02T08:26:59","modified_gmt":"2014-12-02T08:26:59","slug":"is-there-really-no-error-in-the-sentence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/schooltutoring.com\/scholarship\/2013\/08\/05\/is-there-really-no-error-in-the-sentence\/","title":{"rendered":"Is there Really No Error in the Sentence?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Overview:\u00a0 No Error<\/strong>
\nOne of the ways English and grammar skills are tested on the SAT, ACT, and other standardized tests is to ask students to decide if a sentence has errors.\u00a0 Students are then asked to choose from alternatives, including the trap for the unwary, “No error”.\u00a0 It is a similar trap to its mathematical cousin, called “no solution.”<\/p>\n

Errors in Spelling and Punctuation<\/strong>
\nThe most obvious errors may be in spelling or punctuation.\u00a0 Watch for misplaced commas, obvious run on sentences that are joined by a comma splice, or lack of punctuation at the ends of sentences.\u00a0 Study a list of commonly misspelled words, and try not to rely on spell-checker to correct all errors in word processing.\u00a0 Also, study your own list of commonly misspelled words, as everyone has words that look wrong no matter how they are spelled.<\/p>\n

Watch for Misplaced Adjectives and Adverbs<\/strong>
\nAnother set of common errors are in the placement of adjectives and adverbs.\u00a0 Some questions ask students to choose the correct form of the adjective or adverb to complete a sentence.\u00a0 Suppose the sentence was “The pirate’s lair was hidden in the Caribbean, in a port safe from prying officials.\u00a0 Therefore, pirates could spend their booty in shore leave in the islands.\u00a0 The boisterous sounds and heartily voices of pirates in the saloons greeted sailors from far away, even before they entered port.”\u00a0 The error is in the word heartily<\/strong>, an adverb. \u00a0An alternative to change it might be to hearty, for hearty voices.<\/p>\n

Verbal Errors<\/strong>
\nVerbal errors include errors of tense and subject verb agreement.\u00a0 In some reading passages, the general time of the passage is first established.\u00a0 Somewhere in the passage, the verb tense will be changed so that it does not match the rest.\u00a0 For example, “Benedict Cumberbatch played the villain in the movie Star Trek:\u00a0 Into Darkness<\/em>.\u00a0 He will play Khan Noonian Singh in an alternate universe.\u00a0 The actor also portrayed Sherlock Holmes in the most recent BBC adaptation of those works.”\u00a0 \u00a0If the rest of the passage is in the past tense, a sentence in the middle is incorrect with future tense, even in science fiction (without proper preparation, that is).<\/p>\n

Watch for Wordiness<\/strong>
\nSome test questions have alternatives that are more or less wordy.\u00a0 Usually the best selection is one that is the most direct without sacrificing meaning.\u00a0 For example, phrases such as “the fact that” and using passive voice \u00a0add words that can be cut.\u00a0 Compare “The ball was hit by the boy” and “The boy hit the ball”.<\/p>\n

Do you need to know more about how test questions on the SAT or ACT are scored? Learn more<\/a> about how we are assisting thousands of students each academic year.<\/p>\n

Test Prep Academy<\/span> is the premier test prep and private tutoring company for college-bound students. Our highly qualified test prep tutors deliver one-on-one personalized instruction that fit our student\u2019s busy schedule.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Overview:\u00a0 No Error One of the ways English and grammar skills are tested on the SAT, ACT, and other standardized tests is to ask students to decide if a sentence has errors.\u00a0 Students are then asked to choose from alternatives, including the trap for the unwary, “No error”.\u00a0 It is a similar trap to its […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":3188,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2841,3019,3020,2851,3018],"tags":[3250,3292,3341,3455],"class_list":["post-3484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-act","category-comprehension-and-grammar","category-essay-and-writing","category-sat","category-writing-act","tag-proofreading","tag-spelling-errors","tag-verbal-errors","tag-wordiness"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/schooltutoring.com\/scholarship\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3484","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/schooltutoring.com\/scholarship\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/schooltutoring.com\/scholarship\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/schooltutoring.com\/scholarship\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/schooltutoring.com\/scholarship\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3484"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/schooltutoring.com\/scholarship\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3484\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/schooltutoring.com\/scholarship\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/schooltutoring.com\/scholarship\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/schooltutoring.com\/scholarship\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/schooltutoring.com\/scholarship\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}