This particular page offers links to help you better prepare for the PPST Examinations in Reading and Writing, with an emphasis on mechanics. Those preparing for this test, should follow the link to the Learning Express Library.
When you click the link to this web page, you will first register as a new user;just use your Blackboard name and password. Once in the system, scroll down until you come to the testing area for TEACHER CERTIFICATION. There you will find practice examinations for reading and for mechanics.
Take these practice tests to prepare for the actual examination; you can study easily those areas of concern.
To get to the Learning Express Library, click on this link. Register and then go the appropriate test. Now, you will learn here how many you miss but not the reasons for the errors. At the end of this document, you will find PDF files you can download that will provide you with some sample questions and explanations for the Reading and the Writing tests.
The other links included here will take you to further information about the usage questions asked on the writing examination, from pronoun reference to dangling modifiers.
To take advantage of these links, you must first take the PPST practice test to get a feel for the format. The resources on this page will help your review and then to identify areas of concern. But to take full advantage of the resources requires that you actually become familiar with the vocabulary. To accomplish this goal, you must devote more than a couple hours to the task, starting with the resources offered, for instance, by both AllWrite and the on-line grammar and style pages of OWL (Online Writing Lab), developed by Purdue University.
The following link will take you to AllWrite, an excellent and comprehensive web resource manual that covers all phases of the writing process. The site includes interactive exercises on common errors of concern such as pronoun reference and comma use. In addition, click here to visit the OWL page devoted to Grammar, Punctuation, and Spelling--you will also find helpful exercises.
Dartmouth University's page offers a wealth of material for all writers, as does the University of Wisconsin's Writers' Handbook; the page devoted to common errors provides excellent examples and advice.
The library also has a good deal of material on reserve for the PPST Examinations. Just press this link to review or download a copy at the appropriate link.
The test covers a wide array of grammar rules, including such basic material as Subject and Verb Agreement.
Another area of common concern has to do with case, including subject, object, and possession, such as the differences among "I," "me," and "my." Many mistakes result from the incorrect use of pronouns with regard, in particular, to possession. Pay special attention as well to cases and relative pronouns: who, whose, whom.
Many agreement errors concern indefinite pronouns, and the test certainly covers this area. This link addresses this issue and similar problems with pronoun use. You will want to pay a good deal of attention to indefinite pronouns and pronoun-noun agreement.
One of the most important areas of grammar to cover concerns correct comma use. Mistakes with commas account for most writing errors. The preceding link provides a comprehensive look at correct comma use and the most common errors. This link offers a look at the most frequent mistakes and provides very good examples of the kind of problems the PPST examination examines.
In general, the test covers all the fundamentals of good writing, including the ability to identify sentence fragments and comma splices. The web offers many excellent links to help you. Like many, the preceding page also allows you to take practice tests. As the various examples indicate, comma splices and sentence fragments cause many problems.
At this link, you will find information on Parallel Development in writing, an area the PPST loves to cover.
Other areas you should study include punctuation, especially the use of semicolons; in addition, brush up on the use of various conjunctions, including adverbial and correlative conjunctions. In addition to the preceding pages, look over these links about wordiness and redundancy, homonyms, irregular verbs, and the other and many common errors in English.
From the Dartmouth College page linked here, you will find the following material of tremendous use, the most common errors:
1. Missing comma after introductory phrases.
For example: After the devastation of the siege of Leningrad the Soviets were left with the task of rebuilding their population as well as their city. (A comma should be placed after "Leningrad.")
2. Vague pronoun reference.
For example: The boy and his father knew that he was in trouble. (Who is in trouble? The boy? His Father? Some other person?)
3. Missing comma in compound sentence.
For example: Wordsworth spent a good deal of time in the Lake District with his sister Dorothy and the two of them were rarely apart. (Comma should be placed before the "and.")
4. Wrong word.
This speaks for itself.
5. No comma in nonrestrictive relative clauses.
Here you need to distinguish between a restrictive relative clause and a nonrestrictive relative clause. Consider the sentence, "My brother in the red shirt likes ice cream." If you have TWO brothers, then the information about the shirt is restrictive, in that it is necessary to defining WHICH brother likes ice cream. Restrictive clauses, because they are essential to identifying the noun, use no commas. However, if you have ONE brother, then the information about the shirt is not necessary to identifying your brother. It is NON-RESTRICTIVE and, therefore, requires commas: "My brother, in the red shirt, likes ice cream."
6. Wrong/missing inflected ends.
"Inflected ends" refers to a category of grammatical errors that you might know individually by other names - subject-verb agreement, who/whom confusion, and so on. The term "inflected endings" refers to something you already understand: adding a letter or syllable to the end of a word changes its grammatical function in the sentence. For example, adding "ed" to a verb shifts that verb from present to past tense. Adding an "s" to a noun makes that noun plural. A common mistake involving wrong or missing inflected ends is in the usage of who/whom. "Who" is a pronoun with a subjective case; "whom" is a pronoun with an objective case. We say "Who is the speaker of the day?" because "who" in this case refers to the subject of the sentence. But we say, "To whom am I speaking?" because, here, the pronoun is an object of the preposition "to."
7. Wrong/missing preposition.
Occasionally prepositions will throw you. Consider, for example which is better: "different from," or "different than?" Though both are used widely, "different from" is considered grammatically correct. The same debate surrounds the words "toward" and "towards." Though both are used, "toward" is preferred in writing. When in doubt, check a handbook.
8. Comma splice.
A comma splice occurs when two independent clauses are joined only with a comma. For example: "Picasso was profoundly affected by the war in Spain, it led to the painting of great masterpieces like Guernica." A comma splice also occurs when a comma is used to divide a subject from its verb. For example: "The young Picasso felt stifled in art school in Spain, and wanted to leave." (The subject "Picasso" is separated from one of its verbs "wanted." There should be no comma in this sentence, unless you are playing with grammatical correctness for the sake of emphasis - a dangerous sport for unconfident or inexperienced writers.)
9. Possessive apostrophe error.
Sometimes apostrophes are incorrectly left out; other times, they are incorrectly put in (her's, their's, etc.)
10. Tense shift.
Be careful to stay in a consistent tense. Too often students move from past to present tense without good reason. The reader will find this annoying.
11. Unnecessary shift in person.
Don't shift from "I" to "we" or from "one" to "you" unless you have a rationale for doing so.
12. Sentence fragment.
Silly things, to be avoided. Unless, like here, you are using them to achieve a certain effect. Remember: sentences traditionally have both subjects and verbs. Don't violate this convention carelessly.
13. Wrong tense or verb form.
Though students generally understand how to build tenses, sometimes they use the wrong tense, saying, for example, "In the evenings, I like to lay on the couch and watch TV" "Lay" in this instance is the past tense of the verb, "to lie." The sentence should read: "In the evenings, I like to lie on the couch and watch TV." (Please note that "to lay" is a separate verb meaning "to place in a certain position.")
14. Subject-verb agreement.
This gets tricky when you are using collective nouns or pronouns and you think of them as plural nouns: "The committee wants [not want] a resolution to the problem." Mistakes like this also occur when your verb is far from your subject. For example, "The media, who has all the power in this nation and abuses it consistently, uses its influence for ill more often than good." (Note that media is an "it," not a "they." The verbs are chosen accordingly.)
15. Missing comma in a series.
Whenever you list things, use a comma. You'll find a difference of opinion as to whether the next-to-last noun (the noun before the "and") requires a comma. ("Apples, oranges, pears, and bananas...") Our advice is to use the comma because sometimes your list will include pairs of things: "For Christmas she wanted books and tapes, peace and love, and for all the world to be happy." If you are in the habit of using a comma before the "and," you'll avoid confusion in sentences like this one.
16. Pronoun agreement error.
Many students have a problem with pronoun agreement. They will write a sentence like "Everyone is entitled to their opinion." The problem is, "everyone" is a singular pronoun. You will have to use "his" or "her."
17. Unnecessary commas with restrictive clauses.
See the explanation for number five, above.
18. Run-on, fused sentence.
Run-on sentences are sentences that run on forever, they are sentences that ought to have been two or even three sentences but the writer didn't stop to sort them out, leaving the reader feeling exhausted by the sentence's end which is too long in coming. (Get the picture?) Fused sentences occur when two independent clauses are put together without a comma, semi-colon, or conjunction. For example: "Researchers investigated several possible vaccines for the virus then they settled on one"
19. Dangling, misplaced modifier.
Modifiers are any adjectives, adverbs, phrases, or clauses that a writer uses to elaborate on something. Modifiers, when used wisely, enhance your writing. But if they are not well-considered - or if they are put in the wrong places in your sentences - the results can be less than eloquent. Consider, for example, this sentence: "The professor wrote a paper on sexual harassment in his office." Is the sexual harassment going on in the professor's office? Or is his office the place where the professor is writing? One hopes that the latter is true. If it is, then the original sentence contains a misplaced modifier and should be re-written accordingly: "In his office, the professor wrote a paper on sexual harassment." Always put your modifiers next to the nouns they modify.
Dangling modifiers are a different kind of problem. They intend to modify something that isn't in the sentence. Consider this: "As a young girl, my father baked bread and gardened." The writer means to say, "When I was a young girl, my father baked bread and gardened." The modifying phrase "as a young girl" refers to some noun not in the sentence. It is, therefore, a dangling modifier. Other dangling modifiers are more difficult to spot, however. Consider this sentence: "Walking through the woods, my heart ached." Is it your heart that is walking through the woods? It is more accurate (and more grammatical) to say, "Walking through the woods, I felt an ache in my heart." Here you avoid the dangling modifier.
20. Its/it's error.
"Its" is a possessive pronoun. "It's" is a contraction for "it is."
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