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Test Your Grammar Smarts!

By Helen Wilkie

Republish: EasyPublish™ Published: 31Mar2007 Word count: 407 Viewed: 465 time(s) Get Free Content For Your Site

Here is a series of sentences containing common grammatical errors. See if you can spot them.

1. We started small, but as the company has grown over the past ten years.

2. The reason we cancelled the picnic was because there was a thunderstorm.

3. I have never and will never go skydiving.

4. I have waited for this opportunity for year's.

5. None of the executives were available to meet the visitor.

6. We had to choose between three good candidates for the job.

7. The amount of people taking the subway is growing all the time.

Answers

1. This is not a complete sentence. What happened as the company grew? We must either add something at the end or remove the word as.

Correct: We started small, but as the company has grown over the past ten years we have employed hundreds of people.

Correct: We started small, but the company has grown over the past ten years.

2. Never pair reason and because.

Correct: The reason we cancelled the picnic was that there was a thunderstorm.

Correct: We cancelled the picnic because there was a thunderstorm.

3. The opening phrase is incomplete. In this construction, you must be able to take out the intervening phrase "and will never". If we do that here, we will be left with "have never go", which doesn't make sense.

Correct: I have never gone, and will never go, skydiving.

Correct: I have never gone skydiving, and I never will.

4. This is an incorrect use of the apostrophe. Years in this sentence is not possessive, but simply a plural noun. As such, it requires no apostrophe.

Correct: I have waited for this opportunity for years.

5. The word none is a shortened form of the phrase not one, which would take the singular form. Therefore, none also takes the singular.

Correct: None of the executives was available to meet the visitor.

6. Between is used to compare two. For more than two, use among.

Correct: We had to choose among three good candidates for the job.

7. Use the word number for countable nouns, i.e. those that can be divided into countable units. For non-countable nouns, use amount or quantity.

Correct: The number of people who take the subway is growing all the time.

Correct: The amount of time I spend on the subway is also growing.

How many did you answer correctly? Using correct grammar is vital to good writing, and making these common mistakes can damage your image as a professional.

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