Grammar Study Guide for the HESI Exam

General Information

The Grammar section of the HESI exam contains 50 questions and is timed for 50 minutes. The questions require knowing some very basic rules of written English, such as the names and meanings of the various parts of speech, as well as how and when to use these words in a sentence. This test section also deals with punctuation―what mark to use and when to use it. If you take a little time to go over the following things, it will be a lot easier on test day.

Parts of Speech: Nouns, Pronouns, and Adjectives

The parts of speech are the way in which words can be categorized in the English language. Just as you may categorize different types of foods into fruits, vegetables, starches, and meats, words are categorized into eight parts of speech: nouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, prepositions, pronouns, conjunctions,* and *interjections.

Nouns

Nouns are the simplest of the eight parts of speech. Nouns are people, places, and things. Nouns can be concrete—naming things you can see, touch, or hear—or abstract—naming ideas and concepts.

Common

Common nouns are general people, places, and things. Usually an article (a, an or the) comes before the common noun and the article does not need to be capitalized.

Some examples of common nouns are:

• dog
• table
• grocery store
• sister
• football

Proper

Proper nouns are more specific and need to be capitalized. These are words that name specific people, brands, streets, cities, countries, and even sports teams.

Some examples of proper nouns are:

• France
• Walmart
• Denise
• Dallas Cowboys
• Max
• Los Angeles
• Elmwood Avenue

There are some tricky things about capitalization, though. For example, look at the word dad in these sentences. Both are correct.

My dad is my best friend.
I told Dad to come with us.

Why the difference? In the second sentence, Dad is used as a name. In the first, it is not. Saying, “my dad” is the same as saying, “my ball, my dog, my pencil,” none of which need capital letters.

Abstract

Not all nouns describe people, places, and things that can be touched, heard, or seen. Some nouns, known as abstract nouns, describe concepts and ideas, rather than physical objects.

Some examples of abstract nouns are:

• knowledge
• love
• bravery
• friendship

Although it may seem that knowledge is concrete through books and the internet, the actual concept is not physical. Similarly, you can feel love, but not with any of your senses.

Abstract nouns are almost never proper and should not be capitalized unless they begin a sentence. The only exception to this rule is when the abstract noun is part of a phrase, such as The Declaration of Independence, or in reference to a religion, such as Christianity or Buddhism.

Collective

A collective noun is a word referring to a group, that is treated as a singular grammatically.

Some examples of collective nouns are:

• team
• bunch
• class
• flock

Collective nouns can cause confusion, as one word includes multiple people, places, or things, but is used in a sentence as a singular word. For example, although team includes multiple players, in a sentence we put a or the in front of it, treating it as a singular noun. We also pair verbs with it as with other singular nouns. It would be:

The team arrives one hour before the game.

and not

The team arrive one hour before the game.

Pronouns

Pronouns are shorter words used to replace nouns in a sentence. Consider this sentence:

Jack went to the store with Jack’s mom to get Jack some new sneakers.

It is much easier to say:

Jack went to the store with his mom to get him some new sneakers.

These replacement words are known as pronouns, and the original noun being replaced is known as the antecedent.

Personal

Personal pronouns are words used to replace names. Some are first person, referring to or including yourself, like I, you, me, we, and us. Others are referring to someone else, like they, she, he, her, and it.

Possessive

Possessive pronouns show belonging, or as the term clearly states, possession. Taking the personal pronouns and giving them ownership creates possessive pronouns.

Some examples of possessive pronouns are:

• mine
• hers
• its
• theirs
• ours

Pronoun Case

Pronoun case is key to understanding when to use the nominative version of the pronoun, versus the objective or possessive version of the pronoun. For instance, when do you use me versus I? Or she rather than her?

Nominative

The nominative pronoun is used when the pronoun is acting as the subject of the sentence, and is directly doing the action.

For instance, let’s look at this sentence:

____ play in the soccer game.

In this case, you need the nominative version of the pronoun, I, rather than the objective version, me.

If the subject is compound, such as Ronald and I, you always use the nominative version of the pronoun. A good way to confirm this is to take out the “Ronald and” and see which sounds correct. You certainly wouldn’t say, “Me play in the soccer game.”

Objective

The objective pronoun is used when the pronoun is acting as the object of the sentence, and the action is being done to it.

You could change the previous example sentence around and use the objective pronoun by saying,

The soccer game is played by her.

Possessive

Possessive pronouns show belonging, but they never use apostrophes. Apostrophes are only used to show possession of something by a noun (a person, place, or thing), not when using the replacing pronoun.

For instance, if we were talking about the same soccer game, you would write:

The soccer game was hers.

Pronouns Ending with “Self”

Sometimes, based on the sentence and the way in which the word is being used, self is added to the end of the pronoun. However, this can be tricky, as it is only correct in some situations.

Self can only be added to a pronoun when the subject and object of the sentence are the same person, or in other words, when the subject is acting out the verb to or for themselves.

Some of the correctly used pronouns ending in self are:

• myself
• yourself
• himself
• themselves

For instance, a correct sentence would be:

She made a cup of coffee for herself.

However, it is easy to accidentally use this concept incorrectly. Theirselves, hisself, and ourself are examples of ways writers sometimes misuse pronouns. These are not real words.

Clear Pronoun Reference

Another common mistake when using pronouns is creating sentences with an unclear pronoun reference. Let’s look at this sentence:

Brad and Jack leave their game early to go to his birthday party.

In this sentence, it is unclear whether the pronoun his refers to Jack or Brad. When using pronouns in your writing or identifying pronouns in a sentence, make sure it is clear which noun the pronoun is replacing.

Adjectives

Adjectives are words used to describe nouns. They add information to help the reader visualize the noun. Here are a few examples:

• the funny girl
• the tall player
• the beautiful sunrise
• the plastic bin
• the frustrating problem

Participles as Adjectives

A participle is a verb that can be used as an adjective to describe a noun. You can identify these participles by looking at the form of the verb; participles end in -ing or -ed.

Let’s look at the following sentence…

The crying baby is hungry.

In this sentence, crying is a participle; even though crying can be a verb, it is used here to describe baby, making it an adjective.

The same can be done with a participle ending in ed.

The injured child is crying.

This sentence is similar to the first, as injured can be a verb, but here it is being used to describe the child. This is, again, a participle.

Comparative and Superlative Adjectives

Comparative adjectives compare two things; these adjectives tend to end in -er. For instance, shorter, taller, smarter, or quicker.

Superlative adjectives compare three or more things, and usually end in -est. These are adjectives such as smallest, biggest, and fastest.

Remember, when using comparative adjectives, you never want to put more or most in front of them—the -er or -est at the end of the word already explains that. Writing more shorter or most fastest would be redundant and grammatically incorrect.