Common Usage & Grammar Errors
Introduction
In many standardized exams, you will be tested on common usage and grammar errors. Below we've pointed out many of the most frequent offenders, so that you can spot and fix them easily. Learning these basic rules will greatly help to improve your performance on a number of standardized exams.
Subject-Verb Agreement
For a sentence to be correct, the subject and the verb must agree. Sometimes it can be tricky when a sentence is written in such a way that the subject is obscured, but you have to get used to dissecting the sentence and spotting the conflicts. For example:
"IBM, along with several other major U.S. corporations, are shipping jobs overseas."
This is not correct because you'd never say, "IBM are shipping jobs overseas." Instead, the sentence should read:
"IBM, along with several other major U.S. corporations, is shipping jobs overseas."
Another example is:
"There is six girls in that car."
Even though the subject comes after the verb, they must still agree. To fix this sentence, you should write:
"There are six girls in that car."
Pronoun-Number Agreement
You must use singular pronouns to refer to singular antecedents and plural pronouns to refer to plural antecedents. For example,
"Each of the guys in the band is going to give it their all."
To fix the error above you should rewrite the sentence as follows:
"Each of the guys in the band is going to give it his all."
Run-On Sentence
One of the most common errors you'll spot is the run-on sentence, also known as a common splice. A run-on sentence is an ungrammatical sentence in which two or more independent clauses are conjoined without a conjunction. For example, a run-on sentence might be:
"Alfred wanted to swim in the big pool, it's a beautiful day."
There are several ways to fix this run-on sentence.
1) Break it into two separate sentences:
"Alfred wanted to swim in the big pool. It's a beautiful day."
2) You may use a semicolon instead of a comma:
"Alfred wanted to swim in the big pool; it's a beautiful day."
3) You may make it a compound sentence:
"Alfred wanted to swim in the big pool, and it's a beautiful day."
4) Or best of all, you may fix the problem using proper subordination:
"Alfred wanted to swim in the big pool, since it's a beautiful day."
As you can see, option #4 is the superior choice, since this sentence naturally lends itself to that type of structure.
Sentence Fragment
Another type of error you'll encounter is the sentence fragment. Fragments take the form of dependent clauses, phrases, or other word groups without independent meaning and structure. Writing a sentence fragment rather than a complete sentence can be a serious error. For example, a sentence fragment might be:
1) Phrase
"Entomology, the study of insects."
To fix this you would add a verb:
"Entomology is the study of insects."
2) Dependent Clause
"Although Harold went sailing, leaving his sister behind."
To fix this you could remove the subordinating conjunction:
"Harold went sailing, leaving his sister behind."
3) Noun and Phrase Without a Main Verb
"The night sky buzzing with insects."
To fix this, you could change the modifier "buzzing" to a verb.
"The night sky buzzed with insects."
Verb Form and Tense
In order to clarify what happens at what time, you have to make certain that the verbs in a sentence appear in the proper sequence of tenses. For example:
"After the boy left the classroom, the teacher sank into her chair."
To fix this error, you should make the following change:
"After the boy had left the classroom, the teacher sank into her chair."
Logical Comparison
You should use the comparative form of the adjective, not the superlative, when comparing just two things.
"The boy was able to choose between chocolate and vanilla, but he couldn't decide which was best."
To fix this sentence, you should change "best" to "better."
The comparisons must also be logical and complete. For example:
"The seats in the blue car are bigger than the red car."
This doesn't make sense. Were the seats bigger than a car? This sentence should be rewritten as follows:
"The seats in the blue car are bigger than those in the red car."
Word Order
If you have a participial phrase at the start of a sentence, it shouldn't be left dangling with nothing to modify. Instead, it must describe the subject of the sentence. Look at the following example and find the mistake:
"Screwing in a light bulb, the chair collapsed and he broke his back."
This should be changed so that it doesn't seem like the chair was screwing in the light bulb.
"While he was screwing in the light bulb, the chair collapsed and he broke his back."
Parallelism
You should use parallel grammatical forms to express parallel thoughts. Elements in a sentence are parallel when one construction matches another: a noun and a noun, a verbal and a verbal, a phrase and a phrase, and so on.
"The cars were cheap and made a lot of noise."
To fix the above sentence, you would need to change the verb "made" into an adjective so that it matched with the adjective "cheap."
"The cars were cheap and noisy."
Another example:
"Joe played baseball for recreation, exercise, and he just loved the game."
As you can see, there's a problem with parallelism. The pronoun "he" doesn't match with the nouns "recreation" and "enjoyment." To fix this sentence, we can make the following changes:
"Joe played baseball for recreation, exercise, and enjoyment."
Diction and Idiom
The manner in which something is expressed in words is very important. There are common errors that might be difficult for someone who is not a native speaker of the language to detect. For example:
"The affects of her laughter reverberated through the room."
This is not correct because the word "affects" means to act physically on, or have an effect upon. Instead, the word "effects" should be used because it means the "result of."
"The effects of her laughter reverberated through the room."
Many standardized exams will test you on standard English idioms, words that are frequently misused, and on levels of usage. You must use your ear for the language and your experience to spot these errors and choose the correct answers.
Adverb and Adjective Misuse
It's easy to misuse adverbs and adjectives. For example:
"He did good on his SAT exams."
The use of an adjective in the above sentence is incorrect. Instead, you should use an adverb.
"He did well on his SAT exams."
Another example is:
"He felt terribly about leaving home."
To correct this, you should use a predicate adjective to describe the subject.
"He felt terrible about leaving home."
Case Errors
Case expresses the relationship of pronouns and nouns to other words in the sentence by the use of different forms. Case errors typically occur with the use of personal pronouns in the nominative case (he, she, I, we, they, who) when they are used as subjects or predicate nominatives, and in the objective case (whom, them, us, me, him, her) when they are used as objects of prepositions, direct objects, and indirect objects. For example:
"My ex-girlfriend and me didn't have much to talk about."
To fix the error in the above sentence, you should change "me" to "I" as shown below.
"My ex-girlfriend and I didn't have much to talk about."
A good way to test a sentence like this is to break it into two parts and repeat each part to yourself. Which of the following sounds correct?
"Me didn't have much to talk about."
"I didn't have much to talk about."
The answer is obvious when you break the sentence up and insert "I" instead of "me."
The same is true for the other pronouns.
"Mark and him went to the store."
The "him" should be "he."
You'd say, "He went to the store," not "Him went to the store."
There are too many other examples to list here, but you get the idea. It's very simply once you get the hang of breaking up the sentences and testing the pronouns.
