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10 Grammar Rules
Every Teacher Should Know
Judy Baker
Antioch University
Seattle Washington
Top Ten Grammar Rules
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This guide is not protected by copyright. It is the author’s
intention that it be reproduced, in whole or in part,
wherever and whenever educators and educators-to-be
find it useful to do so. Enjoy!
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Table of Contents
Introduction
Page
2
Rule # 1 Know the Parts of Speech
Page
2
Rule # 2 Understand the Parts of Sentences
Page
3
Rule # 3 I [is not an] Object!
Page
3
Rule # 4 Use Combination Pronouns Correctly
Page
5
Rule # 5 Force Your Subjects and Verbs to Agree Page
5
Rule # 6 Get Your Nouns and Pronouns to
Page
Agree, Too!
6
Rule # 7 Capitalize Correctly
Page
7
Rule # 8 Punctuate for Meaning
Page
8
Rule # 9 Stop Apostrophe Anarchy
Page
9
Rule # 10 Don’t Trust Your Spellchecker
Page
10
Conclusion
Page
11
Top Ten Grammar Rules
Self Test
Self Test Answers
4
Page
12
Page
13
Introduction
If we’re like most people, we react to learning grammar as
if we have been exposed to the plague: we count ourselves
lucky to have escaped. Once we’ve survived “grammar
school,” we move on with our lives, conscious that
grammar is out there, lurking. As a result, we use language
cautiously. We stay on the safe paths of informal
communication and avoid risky areas where grammar
might catch us unawares.
For teachers, though, grammar’s threat is unavoidable.
Our written and spoken language is examined under a
microscope for any violation of grammatical laws. Should
one be found, we are labeled illiterate and unqualified to
teach (regardless of our knowledge and skills).
This guide is designed to be a “booster shot” against bad
grammar (whose symptoms are misunderstanding,
confusion and the near-fatal appearance of ignorance).
Like children’s medicine, it is packaged to be as palatable
as possible. Take once before teaching—in small doses
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according to your tolerance; thereafter, on an as-needed
basis.
RULE #1 KNOW THE PARTS OF SPEECH
Picture a car. It moves on a road. The car is red, and it
moves quickly. In this image you’ve got all the parts of
speech:
 The car is your noun—it is the thing that you are
discussing.
 It moves—that’s the verb, the action the noun takes.
 The car is red—red is an adjective describing the
noun.
 The red car moves quickly—this is an adverb
modifying the verb.
 The red car moves quickly on the road—“on the
road” is a prepositional phrase, consisting of a
preposition (on) and its object (the road). A
prepositional phrase locates the noun and verb.
Add conjunctions (connecting words like “and” and “but”)
and articles (a, an, the) and you’ve got all the building
blocks of language. Try your own visualization. Do you
see how the parts work together to complete the image?
Now when you need to specify a word in a sentence, you
can define its function by knowing its part of speech.
You’ve won half the battle!
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RULE #2 UNDERSTAND PARTS OF SENTENCES
Sentences, too, have parts: subjects, predicates, clauses
and objects. These, too, are related to functions:
 The subject is the primary “noun” segment of the
sentence. It tells us what is being discussed.
 The predicate is the primary “verb” segment. It
tells us what the subject is doing.
 Objects are nouns other than the subject which are
acted upon by verbs or prepositions. They tell us
what is being affected by the subject and verb.
 Clauses are sentence fragments included to expand
the meaning of the sentence. (Prepositional phrases
are a kind of short clause.) They tell us something
about the subject or verb that is indirectly related to
what’s happening in the sentence.
A sentence must have at least a subject and predicate to be
complete; objects and clauses are additional levels of
complexity. Keeping our image in mind, here are
examples:
Subject
The red car
Predicate
moves.
Subject
Predicate with Object
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The quick red car
Subject
The red car
hits a huge pothole.
Predicate with Prepositional Phrase
moves quickly on the road.
Clause with Prepositional Phrase
Subject
Predicate with Object and Prepositional Phrase
Moving quickly on the road, the red car
huge pothole by the curb.
hits a
Recognizing the parts of a sentence helps us to identify
common writing problems like sentence fragments (a
sentence is missing either a subject or predicate) and runon sentences (a sentence with too many subjects and
predicates). When you want to analyze a sentence, first
break it down into the subject and predicate, then look at
other elements (clauses and objects) to see if they add or
detract from the meaning. Remove any parts that are
superfluous or confusing—this is the key to clear writing.
RULE #3 I [IS NOT AN] OBJECT!
Let’s analyze one sentence closely:
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Predicate
8
Subject
with Prepositional Phrase
Object
The red car
a huge pothole
hits
by the curb.
“Pothole” is the object of the verb: it is the thing affected by
the action. Objects of verbs usually answer the question
“what?” as in “The red car hit what?” Objects of
prepositions work the same way. There are two
problems with objects. The first is that not all nouns in
the predicate are objects. For instance, this sentence seems
to consist of a subject and predicate with an object:
The red car is a fast vehicle.
After all, there are two nouns and a verb in between just
like our example above, right? Also, “vehicle” answers the
question “what?” very nicely. So, what’s the problem?
Latin is the problem. Here’s the grammatical [il]logic for
why “vehicle” isn’t an object:
The Latin derivative verb “to be” (is/was/has
been/had been) acts like an equal sign; it indicates that
a secondary noun is the same as the subject. Thus, this
noun is also a subject and not an object. Other verbs,
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on the other hand, involve the subject in an action.
Thus the secondary noun is being acted upon and is an
object.
You’re probably wondering why anyone but Hamlet
should care about this “to be” dilemma. It becomes
important because of the second problem with objects: case.
You can also thank Latin for this one. In Latin, you mark
all nouns with a case. In English, we have only preserved
cases in pronouns. Do these look familiar?
who/whom
she/her
I/me
he/him
we/us
they/them
 The first of each pair is the subject case. You use
this whenever the pronoun isn’t an object.
 The second of each pair is—you guessed it—the
object case. This is used whenever the noun is the
object of a verb or of a preposition.
Here’s how it works:
Subject Verb Object
He
hit
me
(not He hit I—“me” is the object of a verb)
Subject
Verb Preposition Object
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The car drove
over
her
(not over she—“her” is the object of a preposition)
You’ve been doing this without even knowing you were
doing it, right? What messes everyone up is “to be.”
Perhaps you’ve heard someone answer the phone with this
sentence:
This is she…
Seems wrong, doesn’t it? You want to say “this is her.”
But, “her” is the object form and “to be” doesn’t take an
object. Thus “she” must be in the subject form. See?
This rule is why you should never say:
Whom is it? or
Yet, it is correct to say:
It is whom?
You ran over whom in your car?
and
you report it?
(WRONG!)
To whom did
“Whom” is an object in both these cases.
Short Cut
To see if “whom” is correct, try replacing it
with “him.” If you’d say “he” in the sentence,
it’s who. If “him” is correct, it’s whom. Don’t
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forget the “to be” dilemma when deciding
which sounds right.
RULE #4 USE COMBINATION PRONOUNS CORRECTLY
A quick word about those pesky combined
pronouns…you know the ones:
He and I
vs.
They and We vs.
Him and Me
Them and Us
These are actually very simple, if you understand objects
and object case (which you now do, right?). Combined
pronouns follow two hard and fast rules:
1.
2.
“I/We/Me/Us” ALWAYS comes second. (It’s an
ego thing. After all, “ego” is a Latin word.)
Combined pronouns are both in subject case if they
aren’t objects. Otherwise, they are both in object
case. They are NEVER in different cases (i.e., he
and me, him and I or they and us are all WRONG).
These routinely cause speakers and writers trouble because
we don’t think in these grammatical terms (we always think
of ourselves FIRST!). Once you’ve learned to identify
what’s an object and what’s a subject, it’s easy!
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Short Cut
The tried-and-true way to see if your
combined pronouns are correct is to drop one
and see if the sentence makes sense. So:
He and I spent all day in the sun.
He…spent all day in the sun.
(CORRECT!)
She told he and I about the book.
She told he… or She
told I…about the book. (WRONG!)
Remember, too, not to put yourself first when
combining pronouns: “him and me” not “me
and him.”
RULE # 5 FORCE YOUR SUBJECTS AND VERBS TO
AGREE
When you hear “verb subject agreement” it means that the
verb form in a sentence matches its subject form. Luckily
for us, there are only two forms that verbs and subjects
can take: singular and plural. To match, singular subjects
have singular verbs and plural subjects have plural verbs.
You do this unconsciously all the time:
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He goes to the store.
They go to the store.
Millions watch his show.
I learn many things from books.
You and I (not me, mind you) get into trouble in complex
sentences where the verb and subject aren’t right next to
each other or where there is more than one subject (called
a compound subject). For example:
Subject
Verb
Cicely, who works with young kids, carpools 30
miles each day.
Subject
Verb
A doctor and two lawyers from UW argue
about politics the whole way.
For compound subjects (like the one above), you have to
do some detective work before you can determine whether
you use the singular or plural form of the verb. The clue
you’re looking for is the conjunction. “And” makes ALL
compound subjects plural, even if they are made up of
singular nouns. Thus:
A butcher, a baker and a candlestick maker go merrily,
merrily along.
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Mechanics and a welder begin their strike Wednesday at
noon.
Should “or/nor” be the conjunction, things get a little
trickier. With these the compound subject is singular if it is
made up of all singular nouns. It is plural if at least one
noun is plural. For instance:
singular singular singular
A butcher, a baker or a candlestick maker makes the girls
cry.
plural
singular
Neither the mechanics nor the welder ever leave a tip for
the waitress.
Short Cut
As with the combined pronoun rule, the triedand-true test for verb subject agreement is to
drop all but one of the nouns and see if each
fits. When you have “or” and at least one
plural, though, the singular nouns will sound
wrong. Think of it as the plural noun(s)
carrying the most weight. Thus, the verb is
plural for all of the subjects.
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RULE #6 WHILE YOU’RE AT IT, GET YOUR NOUNS
AND PRONOUNS TO AGREE, TOO!
If you thought it was tough to get verbs and subjects to
match, you’ll really have fun getting nouns to stay on the
same wavelength. The rules are the same as those for
verbs. That is, singular gets singular and plural gets plural.
Compound nouns that use “and” are always plural; those
with “or/nor” are singular if each noun is singular, plural if
at least one is plural. This is old hat to you, right? So:
plural
He entertained his friends from work in the study while
she ignored them in the kitchen.
singular
singular
The Board of Directors and the CEO met yesterday. We
think they will announce a stock split today.
plural
singular
The neighbors or a burglar are sneaking around outside.
Should we attack them?
singular & singular
(leads to two separate pronouns)
She submitted a proposal to John for a new office. Today,
she learned that he approved it.
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Pronoun problems often happen for the same reason that
other “agreement” problems do—the sentence is complex.
Yet, pronouns suffer from a modern problem, too. (Latin
isn’t to blame!) When we became aware of gender issues in
the 1970s, using “he” to describe anyone we didn’t specify
became insensitive (e.g., “I saw someone moving around in
the back of the store. He was probably looking for
something.” POLITICALLY INCORRECT) To avoid
using “he” we often cheat and use “they” thinking that we
are being neutral. This is a nice theory, but it’s bad
grammar. As obnoxious as it is, we must use “he or she”
to describe this person. So:
A student who has first lunch eats first. His or her fourth
period comes afterwards.
Although it probably seems illogical, the terms “each,”
“everyone” and “every” along with “any” and “someone”
should be singular, while “all” is plural. Thus:
Everyone who has first lunch eats first. His or her fourth
period comes afterwards. (CORRECT!)
All students who have first lunch eat first. Their fourth
period comes afterwards. (CORRECT!)
Each student must turn in a notebook. If they don’t, they
will fail. (WRONG!)
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Each student must turn in a notebook. If he or she does
not, he or she will fail. (CORRECT!)
Someone’s been sitting in my chair, and they’d better watch
out! (WRONG!)
Someone’s been sitting in my chair, and he or she had better
watch out! (CORRECT!)
Every student was assigned a mentor. It is his or her job to
set up meetings. (CORRECT!)
Every student was assigned a mentor. It is their job to set
up meetings. (WRONG!)
To avoid mistakes, train yourself to use “all” when you are
thinking about a group and “every” “any” or “each” when
you are thinking about individuals (every one, any one and
each one). Then the verbs and pronouns will coincide with
your mental picture, and the correct grammar will follow.
RULE #7 CAPITALIZE CAREFULLY
This rule is easy (especially after the nuances of verb
subject and noun pronoun agreement!). In normal
writing you only capitalize proper nouns—formal names
of people, places and things:
Linus Torvalds, inventor of Linux, is a Finn who used to
work for the largest company in Europe—Nokia.
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Titles are capitalized only when they stand in for the name
of the specific person or thing. For instance:
The President landed at the airport.
(“President” stands in for “Bill Clinton”)
Words like airport, hospital, school, mall and store aren’t
capitalized because they are used in a general sense. When
we want our reader to know the specific airport, hospital,
school, mall or store, we must cite its actual name:
The President landed at Boeing Field then stopped by
Nordstrom’s in the mall.
Capitalization is important in citations (entire manuals are
dedicated to these—check out the MLA handbook for
humanities and the APA manual for sciences).
Capitalization also highlights titles, subtitles and labels in
texts. For these uses, you are free to choose whatever style
you like, provided you are consistent and clear throughout
the text.
There is one important caveat for capitalization.
Capitalizing words in regular text for emphasis isn’t good
style, it’s bad grammar. If you’d like to show inflection by
marking a particular word (as in the previous sentence), use
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italics, underlining, bold or—if the word(s) carries the
utmost importance—use all capital letters (referred to as
ALL CAPS). If you simply capitalize the first letter of a
word, you give the reader the impression that it is a title or
formal name, which can be very confusing. Compare:
I want every student to know These Rules.
(WRONG!)
I want every student to know these rules.
(CORRECT!)
I want every student to know these rules.
(CORRECT!)
I want every student to know these rules.
(CORRECT!)
I want every student to know THESE
RULES. (CORRECT!)
I want every student to know THESE
RULES. (OVERKILL!)
RULE #8 PUNCTUATE FOR MEANING
We all know that a period ends a sentence. What about
the other punctuation marks: ; - -- () and : ? Here’s
how they work:
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 Semicolons connect short sentences; they do it
easily.
 Hyphens connect easy-to-misunderstand word
phrases. They also join two segments of a typeset word that is broken up
because of space.
 If you come across a dash—and you read what
it says—you learn relevant information about
the main sentence.
 A sentence that includes parentheses (like this)
adds an idea that isn’t necessary for
understanding.
 Colons point to a number of things: a list of
items, a response to the main sentence or other
information directly responsive to the main
sentence.
Entire books are written on the comma. In this guide,
we’ll narrow things down to only 5 rules.
1.
Commas separate words or phrases in a series of at
least 3. Two styles are acceptable for their use:
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 a comma before the conjunction (1, 2, and 3)
and
 no comma before the conjunction (1, 2 and 3).
Commas NEVER follow the conjunction in a series (1, 2,
and, 3—WRONG!). You should choose your style and
keep consistent within a text. Examples are:
Butchers, bakers and candlestick makers are funny.
Going to the beach, getting a tan, and soaking up the sea
air are my goals.
2.
Commas are used in dates that have at least 3
elements; they also follow dates with at least 3
elements. (See a pattern here?) So:
I was born January 5, 1963, in a town called Hope.
I was born in January 1963 in a town called Hope.
3.
Commas succeed introductions and precede extensions
to a sentence. As in:
However, it’s hard to say who’s right.
You’re lying, aren’t you?
4.
A commas should not separate:
 a subject and its predicate
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 a verb and its object
 a preposition and its object
However, you will find commas that come between
these. To be correct, these must separate elements in a
series or set off an entire clause. For instance:
Subject
Predicate
Going to the beach, getting a tan, and soaking up
the sea air are my goals.
Verb
Objects of the Verb
I called two stores, a warehouse and a salon
to find the shampoo I wanted.
Preposition
She went to
Minnesota.
Subject
Predicate
Objects of the Preposition
Michigan, Illinois, and
Clause
The woman, a stunning blonde, walked right up to
the police chief.
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In general, to use commas correctly you must forget the
old rule that commas go wherever you pause. Instead, use
them to separate words and phrases so that the sentence
makes more sense. If you follow the rules above and
you’re still not sure where your commas go, decide if your
sentence is too complex. It’s better to break it up than to
rely on punctuation to make it clear.
RULE #9 STOP APOSTROPHE ANARCHY
The apostrophe [ ’ ]serves two functions:
 it marks contractions (don’t, can’t, won’t, didn’t,
etc.) and
 added with an “s” it identifies possession.
Possession is how we refer to the relationship between two
nouns, one of which “belongs to” (possesses) the other.
The owner-noun is possessive. Examples are:
Nobody’s fault (the fault belongs to no one)
New Year’s Eve (the eve of the new year)
a dog’s bite (the bite of a dog)
Apostrophes NEVER come before “s” to make a noun
plural, and they NEVER occur with a verb. Thus:
An onion’s smell is strong.
Onions in the sun smell strongest.
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If you smell onions, you cry and your nose runs.
You’ve probably come across words that end with an
apostrophe. These are possessive nouns whose last letter
is “s” or “z” (like physics, ethics, Charles and Liz) or are
nouns that are both plural (with the “s” on the end) and
possessive (with an apostrophe). For example:
Physics’ heroes are not well known. (the heroes of
physics)
Liz’ bookbag is still here. (the bookbag belongs to Liz)
Students’ parents are welcome to attend. (the parents of
students)
It is also acceptable to show possession for nouns ending in
“s” or “z” with the usual ‘s added on:
Physics’s heroes are not well known. (the heroes of
physics)
Students’s parents are welcome to attend. (the parents of
students)
As with all options for rules, you should choose one of the
two styles and be consistent in your text.
Short Cut
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To determine whether something is
possessive or not, try a reverse question. Take
the word that follows it and say “whose is it?”
The answer word is possessive, and it should
get an apostrophe. For example:
Students’ parents are welcome to attend.
Whose parents are welcome to attend? The
students’ parents are.
Onions in the sun smell strongest.
“In” doesn’t belong to anyone, so “onions”
isn’t possessive.
Walla Wallas are the country’s favorite onion.
Whose favorite onion are Walla Wallas? The
country’s.
Having said all that, let me explain the one exception to the
apostrophe rules: the word “it.” Someone somewhere
decided that “it’s” couldn’t represent both “it is” and
possessive it. So he or she decided that “its” would be the
possessive form. Instead of clearing up confusion, this
exception causes it. These days it’s rare to see “its” or
“it’s” used correctly. Here’s the right way:
Look, it’s a black labrador retriever! (it is a black lab)
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I think its name is Barney. (the name of it is Barney)
Short Cut
To check your its/it’s form, replace it with “it
is.” If the sentence makes sense, write “it’s.”
If the sentence doesn’t, write “its.” Also, “its”
answers the question “whose is it?” above.
RULE #10 DON’T TRUST YOUR SPELLCHECKER
They didn’t teach this rule back in grammar school (at least
my generation). It is well known that spellcheckers don’t
catch everything (their/there, for instance, or to/too/two).
Unfortunately, when it comes to grammar, spellcheckers
often “correct” what isn’t wrong. This is almost always the
case with possessives. Rarely does a spellchecker recognize
that one of its words with an ’s added is spelled correctly.
Instead, it might suggest that you use the plural form (with
just an “s,” no apostrophe). Don’t be fooled into uncorrecting your possessives. Simply double check the
spelling of the regular word (there are things called
dictionaries that can help you do this) and triple check that
you’re using the possessive correctly. Finally, rest assured
that you are smarter than your computer—at least for a
while.
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Besides possessives, two other apostrophe constructions
often confuse computers (and writers, too!). They are:
your/you’re
and
who’s/whose
 “Your” means “belonging to you.” It is the
possessive form of “you.”
 “You’re” is a contraction for “you are.”
So:
You’re a mean one, Mr. Grinch. (You are a mean one)
Your heart is made of coal. (the heart belonging to you)
 “Whose” means “belonging to the person
mentioned before” as in:
The Grinch, whose heart was made of steel, stole
Christmas. (the heart of the Grinch)
 “Who’s” is a contraction for “who is” as in:
Who’s that masked man? (who is he?)
Short Cut
Like “it’s” “you’re” and “who’s” can be
replaced with the full form, “you are” and
“who is,” respectively. If the full form doesn’t
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make sense in the sentence, the correct
spelling is “your” or “whose.” And—you
probably guessed this was coming—“your”
answers the question “whose is it?” and
“whose” is the very question that proves
possession in the first place.
Conclusion
Ouch!—you are now inoculated against bad grammar.
You understand why things are right when they’re right
and wrong when they’re wrong. You can address your
administrators, write letters to your students’ parents and
even correct your students’ grammar mistakes without
trepidation. Before you ride off into the grammatical
sunset, though, you should know three things:
1.
2.
All writers make mistakes—dumb ones!--all the time.
Good writers are good editors; they reread and double
check everything (and still miss some). Don’t expect that
having learned the rules, you will automatically write
correctly. It’s more practical to assume that now that
you know the rules, you’ll catch yourself making
mistakes more often. Consider yourself a success every
time you do.
This guide doesn’t cover everything. In order to beat the
grammar bug for good, keep a writing manual by your
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side at all times. Strunk and White, St. Martin’s and a
score of other works systematically present more
complex and obscure rules that you will occasionally run
into (like not ending a sentence with a preposition, for
instance). I like to think of these books as “protection.”
Practice safe text.
3.
If the axiom that you learn only 10% of what you’re
taught but 90% of what you teach holds true, the best
way to learn good grammar is to teach it. Go for it!
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Self Test
Rule # 1—mark the parts of speech for each word in this
sentence:
Renaissance instruments play on a different scale.
Rule # 2—identify the subject, predicate, objects and
clauses in this sentence:
Without being told, we knew the answer on her mind.
Rule # 3—fill in the correct pronoun “who” or “whom”
in the sentence below:
I wasn’t sure that Izzy ________ I called the night before
would come.
Rule # 4—fill in the correct pronouns “he and I” or “him
and me” in this sentence:
Frankie and Johnny is a song written about
________________.
Rule # 5—fill the verb form “think” or “thinks” to match
its subject in the sentence below:
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Students, who are a tough audience, _______________
all lessons are boring.
Rule # 6—fill in the pronoun “their” or “his or her” to
match its subject in the sentence below:
Any parent who wants to meet _____________ child’s
teachers should attend Open House.
Rule # 7—capitalize the correct words in this sentence:
Does the constitution insure every american the right to
life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?
Rule # 8—add the correct () -- - ; or : to the sentence
below:
The best movie this year at least for me was Casablanca I
saw it for the first time on video last week.
—add the correct commas to the sentence below:
In the end my mother her sister her sister’s boyfriend and I
stayed friends or did we?
Rule # 9—choose the correct word “your” or “you’re” for
the blanks in this sentence:
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I’m told that ____________ the smartest kid in class, and
_____________ work is outstanding.
Rule # 10—choose the correct word “its” or “it’s” for the
blanks in this sentence:
Leaving aside ________ obvious problems, _______ a
good place to start looking.
Turn the page for the answers!!
Self Test Answers
adjective
noun
verb prepositional phrase
1. Renaissance instruments play on a different scale.
Clause
subject
and prepositional phrase
2. Without being told, we
her mind.
predicate with object
knew the answer on
3. I wasn’t sure that Izzy whom I called the night before
would come.
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4. Frankie and Johnny is a song written about him and
me.
5. Students, who are a tough audience, think all lessons
are boring.
6. Any parent who wants to meet his or her child’s
teachers should attend Open House.
7. Does the Constitution insure every American the right
to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?
8. The best movie this year (at least for me) was
Casablanca; I saw it for the first time on video last week.
In the end, my mother, her sister, her sister’s
boyfriend, (this comma optional) and I stayed friends, or
did we?
9. I’m told that you’re the smartest kid in class, and your
work is outstanding.
10. Leaving aside its obvious problems, it’s a good place
to start looking.