Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
English Grammar Really Does Matter
By Admin
Whether we are talking about a five year old that is about to start learning to read or whether we are talking about a thirty year old woman who is attempting to write a thesis for her master's degree, we cannot deny the fact that taking time to learn proper English grammar is important.
When we see or hear about English grammar, the immediate reaction of many people I know is to cringe. They are reminded of junior high and high school English class and the way that their English teachers made them to English grammar exercise after exercise. Because English grammar is usually seen in such a negative sense, it is all the more important that people replace those lies with the truth that learning English grammar really is important for anyone who wants to have a proper perspective of the English language.
When we are speaking or hearing English, not too many of us take the time to think about the fact that English grammar is the very thing that allows us to communicate with and understand one another. It is not so much because we use the same words of the English language, but it is because we all put our words together in certain ways to form thoughts and sentences that we can understand each other. This, in short, is the purpose of English grammar.
English grammar is the mechanics of the English langauge that allows for two people who use the same vocabulary to be able to communicate without misunderstanding. Certainly there will always be some level of misunderstaning that happens when two people communicate, but so much of our problems will be lessened if we all take some time to learn English grammar.
Many schools today are moving away from making English grammar a part of the regular curriculum. So while students may learn how to read and write successfully, they will likely never learn the English grammar or the reasons why they are speaking and writing as they are. So if you or someone you know is struggling with any element of the English language, or if you know a child or someone who is attempting to learn English for the first time, then make sure English grammar is included as an important part of the learning process.
Being able to speak, understand and write a language is an important part of being successful no matter what you do in life. And taking the time to learn even the basics of English grammar will go far in helping people communicate even better.
The Benefits of Learning English
ARTICLES
The English language has become the language of international communication. Many people living in the European Union speak English as a foreign language and use English to communicate with people from all over the world
There are over 750 million people who speak English as a foreign language. In the year 2000 the British Council said that there were about a billion people learning English.
These people are benefiting from the many advantages of learning English as a foreign language.
Travel
Travel and tourism around the world is carried out in English. If you are planning a holiday to a foreign country you will probably be speaking English not only at the airport but also in the country itself.
Information exchange
One of the biggest advantages of learning English as a second language is that you will be able to discover a world of information. English is the language of the internet world. If you are learning English as a foreign language you will be able to send e-mails to people in English from all over the world.
These are only a few advantages of learning English as a foreign language.
Why not take a language course with inlingua Malta and experience these advantages yourself!
How to learn English with Fun
Search IELTS and English Resources:
IELTS and
How to prepare for your IELTS writing
How to do Task 1 – Processes and flow charts
• Spend about 5 minutes studying the flow chart or diagram and preparing your answer.
• Make sure you understand what the important stages of the flow
chart or diagram are and that you know what order they all come in.
Find a place to begin and work your way through or around the
diagram or chart.
• You will need to include all the stages in your description.
• Make sure you are aware of any stages that happen at the same
time as other stages or are alternatives.
• You will probably be using the present simple passive and present
simple if you are describing a process.
• Use any notes on the diagram but put them into your own words.
• Think about varying your vocabulary. Use synonyms. If, for
example, the diagram describes jobs – interchange ‘jobs’, ‘occupations’,
‘types of employment/work’ etc.
• Make sure you organize your information clearly. You will need
an introduction and body for this report. A conclusion is not
necessary.
- Your introduction should introduce the process or flow chart
and give an overview to summarize its overall function.
- Your body will describe the process or flow chart in a logical
order.
• For this report you will need to guide the reader with sequence
expressions such as ‘first of all’, ‘after that’, ‘at the same time’,
‘concurrently’ etc.
• Don’t copy phrases from the instructions as this will not be
assessed. Use your own words.
• Don’t take more than 20 minutes over this task.
• Try to write neatly and cross out errors with one line only.
• Leave a couple of minutes to read through what you have written.
Remember
- that you will receive a higher mark if your use a range of structures
and vocabulary.
- you are NOT being asked for your opinion on the information, just
to report
How to do Task 1 – Processes and flow charts
• Spend about 5 minutes studying the flow chart or diagram and preparing your answer.
• Make sure you understand what the important stages of the flow
chart or diagram are and that you know what order they all come in.
Find a place to begin and work your way through or around the
diagram or chart.
• You will need to include all the stages in your description.
• Make sure you are aware of any stages that happen at the same
time as other stages or are alternatives.
• You will probably be using the present simple passive and present
simple if you are describing a process.
• Use any notes on the diagram but put them into your own words.
• Think about varying your vocabulary. Use synonyms. If, for
example, the diagram describes jobs – interchange ‘jobs’, ‘occupations’,
‘types of employment/work’ etc.
• Make sure you organize your information clearly. You will need
an introduction and body for this report. A conclusion is not
necessary.
- Your introduction should introduce the process or flow chart
and give an overview to summarize its overall function.
- Your body will describe the process or flow chart in a logical
order.
• For this report you will need to guide the reader with sequence
expressions such as ‘first of all’, ‘after that’, ‘at the same time’,
‘concurrently’ etc.
• Don’t copy phrases from the instructions as this will not be
assessed. Use your own words.
• Don’t take more than 20 minutes over this task.
• Try to write neatly and cross out errors with one line only.
• Leave a couple of minutes to read through what you have written.
Remember
- that you will receive a higher mark if your use a range of structures
and vocabulary.
- you are NOT being asked for your opinion on the information, just
to report
Reading Passage 1 - Example
Personal communication in the age of the Internet
Some people are concerned about the influence the computer has, and will have, on our daily communications. Dire pictures have been drawn of pale, overweight adolescents gazing myopically at the screen and gnawing at cold potato chips, while the rest of the world plays in the sunshine outside. The pessimists see these young people retreating into isolation, unable to communicate with people, their total lack of social skills the direct result of their mastery of the computer, which they use for games, but not for communication.
There is another, very different picture. Although there will undoubtedly be some people who cannot bear to leave the screen, the vast majority of people will use the computer as a means of communication with others. People can e-mail friends in faraway countries, and the reply can be swift and, usually succinct. In fact, the very nature of communication by e-mail is somewhat casual : Writer A sends a message of say, four paragraphs, Writer B responds paragraph by paragraph, picking out the points which seem to be important, and transmits. Writer A can quickly ensure that Writer B has understood the message. Swift, accurate communication has occurred, with a great saving of paper.
There is no checking back into old letters to see what was said in the first place, and there is little time to forget. If e-mail communication is quick convenient and casual, the chat line is quicker and wilder. This is conducted in real time, which means that people can contact each other and type messages, frequently mis-spelt in their hurry, exchanging views around the world. The language used is brief and to the point, communication of the idea being the supreme goal. There was a time when jokes travelled around the world when international telephone operators shared them during the long, boring night shifts. Those old jokes took about twelve hours to become current elsewhere. Today a joke can be in cyberspace as soon as it has been invented.
The benefits of communications through cyberspace are immense, and for some people it will break their isolation, not increase it. Consider a frail older person who finds the idea of an international flight daunting, but who has friends in another country. This person can quickly establish contact through the e-mail, and can be fully aware of her friends’ daily doings. This can be made easier as screens are enlarged and keyboards modified, but the breaking down of isolation of the old and disabled is well worth the effort to improve the machinery. We should also think of the immense value of e-mail and the Internet communication to people living in remote or isolated areas.
There is a negative side to all of this. While most people use their computers honestly, there are some who use the innate anonymity of cyberspace cruelly. These people may represent themselves as something that they are not; it can be as innocent as pretending to be one’s own sister, or as vicious as gaining the confidence of a correspondent with a view to robbing them. Confidence tricksters use computers too.
Communication through the internet is here to stay. If we are to thrive as a society we must make sure that this tool is available to as many people as possible, so that we do not develop pockets of our community who are cut off from knowledge of the net.
Questions 1-7
Match the social effect ( 1-7) with the cause ( A-E)
Write the letters A-E in boxes on your answer sheet.
N.B There may be more that one cause for a social effect.
| SOCIAL EFFECT | CAUSE |
| 1. adolescents become isolated
| A Anonymity of cyberspace
|
Questions 8-12
Do the following statements AGREE with the information given in passage 1?
YES
NO
NOT GIVEN
8. Optimists think some people don’t utilize computers as a means of communications with others.
9. E-mail is a means of communication that features, swiftness, briefness, and convenience and is informal and paper saving.
10. The author prefers chat line to e-mail because it conveys information and views in real time.
11. The handicapped are not well worth human beings’ endeavour to make special efforts that will break their isolation.
12. “Pockets of our community” in the last paragraph means “ a small, isolated group”.
Reading Passage 2 - Example
PERSONAL TIME MANAGEMENT
Since the early work of Halberg (1960),the existence of human "circadian rhythms" has been well-known to biologists and psychologists. Circadian rhythms dictate that there are certain times of the day when we are at our best both physically and psychologically. At its simplest, the majority of us feel more alive and creative in the mornings, while come the evenings we are fit only for collapsing with a good book or in front of the television.
Other of us note that in the morning we take a great deal of time to get going physically and mentally, but by the evening are full of energy and bright ideas, while a very few of us feel most alert and vigorous in the late afternoon.
Irrespective of our personal rhythms, most of us have a productive period between 10a.m.and noon, when the stomach, pancreas, spleen and heart all appear to be in their most active phases. Conversely, the majority of us experience a low period in the hour or two after lunch (a time when people in some societies sensibly take a rest), as most of our energy is devoted to the process of digestion. The simple rules here are: don't waste too much prime time having a coffee break around 11a.m.when you should be doing some of your best work, and don't make the after-lunch period even less productive by overloading your digestion. A short coffee or tea break is ,in fact, best taken on arrival at the office ,when it helps us start the day in a positive mood, rather than mid-morning when it interrupts the flow of our activities. Lunch is best taken early, when we are just beginning to feel hungry, and we are likely to eat less than if we leave it until later. An early lunch also means that we can get back into our productive stride earlier in the afternoon.
Changes in one's attitude can also enhance personal time management. For example, the notion of pro-action is eminently preferable to reaction. To pro-act means to anticipate events and be in a position to take appropriate action as soon as the right moment arrives. To react, on the other hand, means to have little anticipation and do something only when events force you to do so. Pro-actors tend to be the people who arealways one step ahead of other people, who always seem to be in the right place at the right time, and who are always better informed than anyone else. Many of us like an easy life, and so we tend to be reactors. This means that we aren't alert to the challenges and opportunities coming our way, with the consequence that challenges bother us or opportunities pass us by before we're even properly aware they're upon us. We can train ourselves in pro-action by regularly taking the time to sit down and appraise the likely immediate future, just as we sit down and review the immediate past.
Psychologists recognise that we differ in the way in which we characteristically attribute responsibility for the various things that happen to us in life. One of the ways in which we do this is known as locus of control (Weiner,1979), which refers to assigning responsibility. At its simplest, some individuals have a predominantly external locus of control, attributing responsibility to outside causes (for example, the faults of others or the help given by them) ,while with other individuals the locus of control is predominantly internal, in which responsibility is attributed to oneself (for example, one's own abilities or lack of them, hard work, etc.).
However, the picture usually isn't as simple as this. Many people's locus of control is more likely to be specific to a particular situation, for example internal in certain areas, such as their social lives, and external in others, such as their working lives. Or, to take another example, they may attribute certain kinds of results to themselves, such as their successes, and certain kinds of results to other people, such as their failures. Obviously the best kind of locus of control is one that is realistic and able to attribute every effect to its appropriate cause, and this is particularly important when it comes to time management. Certainly, there are occasions when other people are more responsible for our time loss than we are, but for most of us, and for most of the time, the blame must fall fairly and squarely upon ourselves.
Questions 1-6
Choose ONE phrase (A-J) from the list in the box below to complete each key point below.
Write the appropriate letters (A-J) in boxes 1-6 on your answer sheet.
The information in the completed sentences should be an accurate summary of points made by the writer.
N.B. There are more phrases (A-J) than sentences, so you will not use them all. You may use any phrase more than once.
Time management-key points
Example Our patterns of circadian rhythms can affect us physically and mentally (G)
1) A proactive person...
2) A reactive person...
3) Analysing circadian rhythms...
4) The idea that the best time to work is in the morning...
5) The notion of feeling alert in the late afternoon...
6) Productivity appears to be enhanced...
List of phrases
A) ...agrees with the circadian rhythms of most people.
B) ...makes us feel alive and creative.
C) ...conforms to the circadian rhythms of a minority of people.
D) ...if our energy is in a low phase.
E) ...is more able to take advantage of events when they happen.
F) ...enables one to gauge physical potential at particular times throughout the day.
G) ...can affect us physically and mentally.
H) ...when several specific internal organs are active.
I) ...takes a more passive attitude toward events.
J) ...when we eat lunch early
Questions 7-13
Complete the sentences below with words taken from Reading Passage 1, "Personal Time Management." Use NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 7-13 on your answer sheet.
Example Most people are less productive..... after lunch
7) Our ............................................. influence our physical and mental performance
8) We are more likely to be productive in the afternoon if we have............................
9) A person who reacts tends not to see .................................. when they are approaching.
10) Assessing the ................ ……………………aids us in becoming proactive.
11) A person with a mainly internal locus of control would likely direct
blame towards ...........................................................
12) A person with a mainly external locus of control would likely direct
failure towards …………………….. ...............
13) A person with a healthy and balanced locus of control would attribute a
result, whether negative or positive, to ....................................
Reading Passage 3 - Example
The radio, reinvented
Almost exactly a century ago, on 12th December 1901, Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi sat in Newfoundland, Canada, listening through and earphone for signals that few believed he would ever receive. But arrive they did, just after noon, from the far side of the Atlantic in Cornwall, England. The faint pip-pip-pip was merely the letters broadcast in Morse code, but in it, Marconi heard the future, “I now felt for the first time absolutely certain that the day would come when mankind would be able to send messages without wires”, he wrote, “Not only across the Atlantic but between the farthermost ends of the earth.”
At that moment began an era of “wireless” innovations that continues through this day, simultaneously shrinking distances between people from all corners of the world and expanding our imaginings about what is possible. By 1920, the first radio station began broadcasting from Pittsburgh,and by the 1930’s, the radio console was the central feature of nearly every American living room. Next, radio-wave technology gave birth to the television, and by the 1940’s there were 23 television stations broadcasting throughout the United States. In the decades that followed, radio waves were harnessed in new devices, from radar to microwave ovens, garage door openers to communication satellites, baby monitoring systems to cellphones, pagers, and the global positioning system. Now, at the turn of the century, Marconi’s vision is about to take on a new life. In a decade or so, researchers say, a host of technologies will come together to create a kind of global wireless Web.
Based on new ways of squeezing signals onto the airwaves, new schemes for relaying them around the globe, and smart, all-in-one terminals, the wireless Web would let any person communicate with any other person, anywhere, anytime, sending any imaginable kind of text, sound, or video. Virtually every government and communications firm on Earth is gearing up for this “tetherless” world. It could stimulate an increase in productivity comparable to that yielded by the Internet itself, says John Cozzens, a program director with the National Science Foundation’s Computer-Communications Research division. “And socially”, he adds, “ I don’t think most of us can even imagine the implications”.
Radio waves have such enduring promise because, travelling at the speed of light, they can carry Information across vast distances almost instantly, in some cases shrugging off obstacles such as buildings and hilltops. In the continuum of electromagnetic waves, radio waves are the longest type, with a wave length ( the distance between any two wave crests ) that can span a few feet or even a few miles, which is what lets them ignore most barriers. Short, high-frequency radio waves, just fractions of an inch long, are called microwaves; even shorter are infra-red, visible, and ultraviolet light, then x-rays, and finally gamma rays, with infinitesimal wavelengths smaller than one atom.
The atmosphere today is so saturated with man-made radio signals that if they were all visible, we would be dazzled by the sight of thousands of different waves- carrying sportscasts and military communications and wireless E-mail and cellphone calls- passing through or bouncing off our bodies at any given moment. Because each television network, each cellphone carrier, each radio station needs its own frequency, or portion of the spectrum, radio resources are finite, and slices of available spectrum are rare and precious.
But just when radio communications seem to be crowded to their limit, new technologies are Emerging to load up the airwaves with still more data, in wider-reaching networks. Many wireless Networks already exist : E-mail services such as Blackberry; mobile phones; and the Bluetooth technology that keeps separate devices such as laptops, hand-held computers, and MP3 players in constant communication with one another within a house or building. But many of these small systems cannot handle the massive volume and variety of data needed to carry multimedia transmissions, and even those that can are often unable to interact with other systems.
“We live in a world of dump-truck technology”, says Bob Miller, head of communications research at AT&T Labs, “ where new capabilities are unloaded in front of us with no thought to how they can be integrated into a larger framework.” That’s a major obstacle to “global seamless roaming”, says David McCartney, president of a wireless start up company called e-tenna. To overcome it, labs are developing what McCartney calls “agile” technologies that would allow a wireless user to migrate from system to system and country to country without ever losing a connection.
Still, no single innovation will be enough, and companies are gambling huge sums – a trillion dollars in Europe alone, by one estimate – to create a totally connected world. Another key prerequisite is freeing up enough of the radio spectrum to carry the torrents to wireless information, including CD-quality sound and crystal-clear video, that might course through the network. Some cellular phone networks, for example, eat up precious radio bandwidth, because once a cell is initiated, a single frequency has to be dedicated to it, even if not much information is travelling. It’s the equivalent of devoting and entire lane in a highway to a single car. Sharing the road. A wireless version of the “packet switching” technology used by the Internet could Allow many users to share the exact same frequency, like many cars travelling in the same lane.
The idea is to break up each transmission into tiny snippets of digital data that would slip into the stream whenever there is space. Until now, packet switching has been ill-suited to transmitted video and voice, because the lags between packets can create distortion. But Lucent Bell Labs is developing protocols for wirelesss systems that create a more orderly transmission, reducing the lags to milliseconds, too short for the human brain to notice a delay. To all of the users sharing the same frequency, the connection would seem unbroken.
Even with enough bandwidth for everyone, there remains the question of how to get the right signals from one user to another, wherever they many both be wandering. Satellites are ideal for relaying signals around much of the globe. But the microwaves they rely on, though able to penetrate the atmosphere from space, can only reach their target if unimpeded by obstacles like trees, houses, or thunderstorms.
That’s why satellite dishes have to have a clear view of the sky. Getting signals from a satellite to or from receivers on cars or hand-held devices is a tall order.
A new innovation unveiled this month, digital satellite radio, attempts to solve these problems by employing ground-based “repeaters”. The radio signals – programming available by subscription across the country- emanate from a satellite, but strategically placed antennas receive the signals and relay them to passing pedestrians or vehicles. Some researchers think these kind of handoffs will be critical to the future worldwide network. In their scenario, every single mobile device that happens to be in use in the given area would act as a repeater, co-operatively helping signals to reach their destination. As on the Internet, separate segments of a single transmission might follow many different paths to their destination. “ The connections will be very organic, not painstakingly mapped out as today’s cellphone grids are,” says Miller.
But most agree that the “biggest challenge of the wireless world is designing a communications tool that can send, pick up, and display all the different kind of wireless date surging through the airways-and still fit into a pocket. “Until now, a TV has been a TV, a radio a radio, a phone a phone,” says Miller. “ But now, you have to teach a single machine to decide which of many different radio technologies to make use of”.
This “software-defined radio” would scan the spectrum for signals, then transform itself into and e-mail portal, a telephone, a radio, or a videophone depending on what it picked up. When the user wanted to reply, the device would assess the kind of data being sent and the capabilities of the local wireless system, then fashion the outgoing transmission. And all this wizardry would have to take place swiftly and invisibly. “All our customers will be aware that they are getting a better experience”, says Paul Mankiewich, Lucent’s chief architect of mobility solutions. Good things to come – It will take years to work out the details, says the National Science Foundation’s Cozzens. But when that happens, he expects a host of societal benefits. Among them : better crisis Management through videoconferencing that would put workers at the scene in instant contact with Experts, telemedicine that can save patients from a distance, and more sophisticated education for rural schools that lack the Internet capacity for multimedia and instantaneous two-way interactions.
Some entrepreneurs even envision wireless virtual reality, in which the air-waves would carry not only just voice, but also a sense of being in a remote location. With the right kind of communications portal, we might “try on” clothes at a store across the country, meet with holograms of our distant colleagues, and feel the warmth of Grandma’s cheek as we kiss it through the ether from thousands of miles away.
But it doesn’t take futuristic scenarios to prove the value of an always-connected world. “I’ve always been the last person to see the need for a cellphone or for a DVD player”, says e-tenna Vice President Andy Humen. “But even I realize that once I can get the data I now get on my desktop anywhere I happen to be, I won’t be willing to give that up”. Neither, he is venturing, will most of us.
Questions 27-31
Answer the following questions, using NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS for each answer. Write your answer in boxes 27-31 on answer sheet.
27) In which country did the first radio station begin broadcasting by 1920?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
28) In the continuum of the electromagnetic waves, which one has the shortest length?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
29) As far as technology is concerned, which word does the author use to describe the future world?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
30) What metaphor does the author use to explain the new wireless communications technology?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
31) Which machine can send, pick up, and display all the different kinds of wireless data through
the airways?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Questions 32-36
Choose the appropriate letters A-D write them in in boxes 31-35 on the answer sheet.
32) At the times of Marconi, people’s attitude to his experiment was that …
A) they were excited about it
B) only Marconi thought it was possible
C) very few, if any, had confidence in it
D) even Marconi was not sure of its success
33) Which of the following is NOT a feature of the future global wireless web?
A) New schemes of squeezing and relaying more signals
B) Allowing numerous simultaneous communications
C) Transmitting any available information
D) Stimulating increase in productivity
34) Radio waves don’t have a bright future because of …
A) their travelling speed
B) the vast distance they travel
C) their wavelength
D) the ability to surmount obstacles
35) According to the passage, the radiowaves are responsible for carrying ALL the following messages
EXCEPT …
A) all telephone calls
B) radio and TV broadcasting
C) wireless e-mails
D) military communications
36) The obstacles to a totally connected world include …
A) too many technologies being unloaded in front of us
B) too much free bandwidth in the radio spectrum being available
C) getting right signals from one user to another
D) designing and all-powerful communications tool
Questions 37-41
Complete each of the following statements ( Questions 36-40) with words taken from Passage 3. Write NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS for each answer.
37) The first radio message sent over a long distance in 1901 was written in
…………………………………………………………………………….
38) The distance between any two …………………………………………………..of the radio waves is
about a few feet to a few miles long.
39) The problem with many of the already-existent wireless networks are either their inability to
………………………………………………………. or their inability to communicate with
other systems.
40) Human brain can not detect the lags between pieces of information transmitted if they are ………..
………………………………………………………….
41) Apart from other societal benefits, ………………………………………….might even carry a sense
of being in a remote location.
IELTS characteristics
The IELTS incorporates the following features:
- A variety of accents and writing styles are presented in text materials in order to minimise linguistic bias. The test focuses on "International English", which includes British English, American English and other varieties. But the TOEFL only concerns North American English. The results are therefore considered more authoritative than TOEFL by some people and organizations (especially the ones outside the United States).
- IELTS tests the ability to speak, read, listen and write in English.
- Two test formats can be chosen from - Academic and General Training.
- Band scores are used for each language sub-skill (Speaking, Listening, Reading and Writing). The Band Scale ranges from 1 ("Non User") to 9 ("Expert User").
Exam Grammar Overview
Common English language errors ( for examination English )
PRONOUN ERRORS
A pronoun is a word that stands for a noun, known as the antecedent of the pronoun. The key point for the use of pronouns is this: pronouns must agree with their antecedents in both number (singular or plural) and person (first, second, or third).
Example:
Steve has yet to receive his degree.
Here, the pronoun his refers to the noun Steve.
Following is a list of the most common pronouns:
PRONOUNS
| Singular | Plural | Both Singular and Plural |
| I, me | we, us | any |
| she, her | they | none |
| he, him | them | all |
| it | these | most |
| anyone | those | more |
| either | some | who |
| each | that | which |
| many a | both | what |
| nothing | ourselves | you |
| one | any |
|
| another | many |
|
| everything | few |
|
| mine | several |
|
| his, hers | others |
|
| this |
|
|
| that |
|
|
Reference
• A pronoun should be plural when it refers to two nouns joined by and.
Example:
Jane and Katarina believe they passed the final exam.
The plural pronoun they refers to the compound subject Jane and Katarina.
• A pronoun should be singular when it refers to two nouns joined by or or nor.
Faulty Usage
Neither Jane nor Katarina believes they passed the final.
Correct: Neither Jane nor Katarina believes she passed the final.
• A pronoun should refer to one and only one noun or compound noun.
This is probably the most common error on the ITP. If a pronoun follows two nouns, it is often unclear which of the nouns the pronoun refers to.
Faulty Usage
The breakup of the Soviet Union has left nuclear weapons in the hands of unstable, nascent countries. It is imperative to world security that they be destroyed.
Although one is unlikely to take the sentence to mean that the countries must be destroyed, that interpretation is possible from the structure of the sentence. It is easily corrected:
The breakup of the Soviet Union has left nuclear weapons in the hands of unstable, nascent countries. It is imperative to world security that these weapons be destroyed.
Faulty Usage
In Somalia, they have become jaded by the constant warfare.
This construction is faulty because they does not have an antecedent. The sentence can be corrected by replacing they with people:
In Somalia, people have become jaded by the constant warfare.
Better: The people of Somalia have become jaded by the constant warfare.
• In addition to agreeing with its antecedent in number, a pronoun must agree with its antecedent in person.
Faulty Usage
One enters this world with no responsibilities. Then comes school, then work, then marriage and family. No wonder, you l ook longingly to retirement.
In this sentence, the subject has changed from one (third person) to you (second person). To correct the sentence either replace one with you or vice versa:
You enter this world with no responsibilities. Then comes school, then work, then marriage and family. No wonder, you look longingly to retirement.
One enters this world with no responsibilities. Then comes school, then work, then marriage and family. No wonder, one looks longingly to retirement.
Example:
In the following sentence, part or all of the sentence is underlined. The answer-choices offer four ways of phrasing the underlined part.
Had the President's Administration not lost the vote on the budget reduction package, his first year in office would have been rated an A.
(A) If the Administration had not lost the vote on the budget reduction package, his first year in office would have been rated an A.
(B) Had the President's Administration not lost the vote on the budget reduction package, it would have been rated an A.
(C) Had the President's Administration not lost the vote on its budget reduction package, his first year in office would have been rated an A.
(D) If the President had not lost the vote on the budget reduction package, the Administration's first year in office would have been rated an A.
Choice (A) changes the structure of the sentence, but retains the same flawed reference.
In choice (B), it can refer to either the President's Administration or the budget reduction package. Thus, the reference is ambiguous.
Choice (C) adds another pronoun, its, but still retains the same flawed reference.
Choice (D) corrects the flawed reference by removing all pronouns. The answer is (E).
SUBJECT-VERB AGREEMENT
Within a sentence there are certain requirements for the relationship between the subject and the verb.
• The subject and verb must agree both in number and person.
Example:
We have surpassed our sales goal of one million dollars.
Here, the first person plural verb have agrees with its first person plural subject we.
Note, ironically, third person singular verbs often end in s or es:
He seems to be fair.
• Intervening phrases and clauses have no effect on subject-verb agreement.
Example:
Only one of the President's nominees was confirmed.
Here, the singular verb was agrees with its singular subject one. The intervening prepositional phrase of the President's nominees has no effect on the number or person of the verb.
• When the subject and verb are reversed, they still must agree in both number and person.
Example:
Attached are copies of the contract.
Here, the plural verb are attached agrees with its plural subject copies. The sentence could be rewritten as
Copies of the contract are attached.
MISPLACED MODIFIERS
• As a general rule, a modifier should be placed as close as possible to what it modifies.
Example:
Following are some useful tips for protecting your person and property from the FBI.
As written, the sentence implies that the FBI is a threat to your person and property. To correct the sentence put the modifier from the FBI next to the word it modifies, tips:
Following are some useful tips from the FBI for protecting your person and property.
• When a phrase begins a sentence, make sure that it modifies the subject of the sentence.
FAULTY PARALLELISM
• For a sentence to be parallel, similar elements must be expressed in similar form.
• When two adjectives modify the same noun, they should have similar forms.
Example:
The topology course was both rigorous and a challenge.
Since both rigorous and a challenge are modifying course, they should have the same form:
The topology course was both rigorous and challenging.
• When a series of clauses is listed, the verbs in each clause must have the same form.
Example:
During his trip to Europe, the President will discuss ways to stimulate trade, offer economic aid, and trying to forge a new coalition with moderate forces in Russia.
In this example, the first two verbs, discuss and offer, are active. But the third verb in the series, trying, is passive. The form of the verb should be active:
During his trip to Europe, the President will discuss ways to stimulate trade, offer economic aid, and try to forge a new coalition with moderate forces in Russia.
• When the first half of a sentence has a certain structure, the second half should preserve that structure.
Example:
To acknowledge that one is an alcoholic is taking the first and hardest step to recovery.
The first half of the above sentence has an infinitive structure, to acknowledge, so the second half must have a similar structure:
To acknowledge that one is an alcoholic is to take the first and hardest step to recovery.
FAULTY VERB TENSE
A verb has four principal parts:
1. Present Tense
a. Used to express present tense.
He studies hard.
b. Used to express general truths.
During a recession, people are cautious about taking on more debt.
c. Used with will or shall to express future time.
He will take the ITP next year.
2. Past Tense
a. Used to express past tense.
He took the ITP last year.
3. Past Participle
a. Used to form the present perfect tense, which indicates that an action was started in the past and its effects are continuing in the present. It is formed using have or has and the past participle of the verb.
He has prepared thoroughly for the ITP.
b. Used to form the past perfect tense, which indicates that an action was completed before another past action. It is formed using had and the past participle of the verb.
He had prepared thoroughly before taking the ITP.
c. Used to form the future perfect tense, which indicates that an action will be completed before another future action. It is formed using will have or shall have and the past participle of the verb.
He will have prepared thoroughly before taking the GMAT.
4. Present Participle (-ing form of the verb)
a. Used to form the present progressive tense, which indicates that an action is ongoing. It is formed using is, am, or are and the present participle of the verb.
He is preparing thoroughly for the ITP.
b. Used to form the past progressive tense, which indicates that an action was in progress in the past. It is formed using was or were and the present participle of the verb.
He was preparing for the ITP.
c. Used to form the future progressive tense, which indicates that an action will be in progress in the future. It is formed using will be or shall be and the present participle of the verb.
He will be preparing thoroughly for the ITP.
PASSIVE VOICE
The passive voice removes the subject from the sentence. It is formed with the verb to be and the past participle of the main verb.
Passive: The bill was resubmitted.
Active: The Senator has resubmitted the bill.
Unless you want to de-emphasize the doer of an action, you should favor the active voice.
Example:
In the past few years and to this day, many teachers of math and science had chosen to return to the private sector.
.
(A) having chosen to return to the private sector.
(B) chose to return to the private sector.
(C) have chosen to return to the private sector.
(D) have chosen returning to the private sector.
Choice (A) is incorrect because it uses the present progressive tense having chosen, which describes an ongoing event. Although this is the case, it does not capture the fact that the event began in the past.
Choice (B) is incorrect because it uses the simple past chose, which describes a past event. But again, the sentence implies that the teachers are continuing to opt for the private sector.
Choice (C) is the correct answer because it uses the present perfect have chosen to describe an event that occurred in the past and is continuing into the present.
Choice (D) is incorrect because it leaves the thought in the sentence uncompleted.
IDIOM & USAGE
Accept/Except:
Accept means "to agree to" or "to receive." Except means "to object to" or "to leave out."
We will accept (receive) your manuscript for review.
No parking is allowed, except (leave out) on holidays.
Account for:
When explaining something, the correct idiom is account for:
We had to account for all the missing money.
When receiving blame or credit, the correct idiom is account to:
You will have to account to the state for your crimes.
Adapted to/for/from
Adapted to means "naturally suited for." Adapted for means "created to be suited for." Adapted from means "changed to be suited for."
The polar bear is adapted to the subzero temperatures.
For any "New Order" to be successful, it must be adapted for the continually changing world power structure.
Lucas' latest release is adapted from the 1950 B-movie "Attack of the Amazons."
Affect/Effect:
Effect is a noun meaning "a result."
Increased fighting will be the effect of the failed peace conference.
Affect is a verb meaning "to influence."
The rain affected their plans for a picnic.
All ready vs. Already
All ready means "everything is ready."
Already means "earlier."
Among/Between:
Between should be used when referring to two things, and among should be used when referring to more than two things.
Sophear, who is a pretty lady, must choose between two suitors.
The fault is spread evenly among the three defendants.
Beside/Besides:
Adding an s to beside completely changes its meaning: Beside means "next to." Besides means "in addition."
We sat beside (next to) the host.
Besides (in addition), money was not even an issue in the contract negotiations. .
Conform to (not with):
Stewart's writing does not conform to standard literary conventions. ."
Correspond to/with:
Correspond to means "in agreement with":
The penalty does not correspond to the severity of the crime.
Correspond with means "to exchange letters":
He corresponded with many of the top European leaders of his time.
Different from/Different than:
The preferred form is different from. Only in rare cases is different than acceptable.
The new Cadillacs are very different from the imported luxury cars.
Double negatives:
(Faulty) Scarcely nothing was learned during the seminar.
(Better) Scarcely anything was learned during the seminar. .
Fewer/Less:
Use fewer when referring to a number of items. Use less when referring to a continuous quantity.
In the past, we had fewer options.
The impact was less than what was expected.
Not only . . . but also:
In this construction, but cannot be replaced with and.
(Faulty) Peterson is not only the top salesman in the department and also the most proficient.
(Correct) Peterson is not only the top salesman in the department but also the most proficient.
One another/Each other:
Each other should be used when referring to two things, and one another should be used when referring to more than two things.
The members of the basketball team (more than two) congratulated one another on their victory.
The business partners (two) congratulated each other on their successful first year.
Regard vs. Regards:
Unless you are giving best wishes to someone, you should use regard.
(Faulty) In regards to your letter, we would be interested in distributing your product.
(Correct) In regard to your letter, we would be interested in distributing your product.
Speak to/with:
To speak to someone is to tell them something:
We spoke to Jennings about the alleged embezzlement.
To speak with someone is to discuss something with them:
Steve spoke with his friend Dave for hours yesterday.
Whether vs. If
Whether introduces a choice; if introduces a condition. A common mistake is to use if to present a choice.
(Faulty) He inquired if we had decided to keep the gift.
(Correct) He inquired whether we had decided to keep the gift.
Example:
The studio's retrospective art exhibit refers back to a simpler time in American history.
(A) The studio's retrospective art exhibit harkens back to
(B) The studio's retrospective art exhibit refers to
(C) The studio's retrospective art exhibit refers from
(D) The studio's retrospective art exhibit looks back to
Choice (A) is incorrect because harkens back is also redundant.
Choice (B) is correct. Dropping the word back eliminates the redundancy.
Choice (C) is incorrect because the preposition from is non-idiomatic.
Choice (D) is incorrect because looks back is also redundant
Remember do not panic, look for the easy mistake first, you have an advantage in that you know the sentence you have been given is wrong, so you are looking only for the right answer. Check basic grammar as stated above when trying to be sure of the answer. Also be careful for
- Adjectives which are also adverbs
hard, hardly : change meaning
He works hard
He hardly works ( is wrong )
Late, lately
He is late
I have not seen him lately
- Always check subject, verb agreement
- Remember about relative pronouns
Who : people
Which, that : things
The Cambodians, who are hard-working, are also friendly, peaceful and kind.
The book, which I gave to Sophear, was fantastic
- Remember that Compound pronouns, someone, everyone, anyone, no-one, everyone are SINGULAR
- watch out for IRREGULAR PLURALS, one man, two men
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