Writing Study Guide for the PERT

The Rules of Agreement

While people don’t always agree, certain parts of sentences must do so to be correctly written. Here are some agreement situations to watch out for.

Subject-Verb Agreement

Subject-verb agreement is the grammatical convention in which a subject matches the plural (or singular) of the verb. For instance, in this sentence:

Mary misses her mom.

the word Mary is singular, and the verb (misses) is also singular (versus the plural miss).

In the sentence:

Dave and Andrew remember their dad.

the subject Dave and Andrew is plural, and the verb remember is plural (versus the singular remembers).

Agreement of Verb Tense

Verb tenses are required to agree to qualify as proper grammar. What does this mean? If you were to create a sentence based in the past, you could not suddenly leap into the future. This creates a confusing pairing in a single sentence, as people cannot be in the past, present, and future all at once.

To make your verb tenses agree, remain consistent. If you began a sentence or story in the past tense, all verbs and descriptions should remain in the past tense. If you begin a story in the present or future tense, all other verbs and descriptions should be in that same time frame.

Pronoun/Antecedent Agreement

A pronoun is used to reference an antecedent (a noun mentioned earlier in a sentence or text). Pronouns include the words he, she, her, his, it, and their. Each of these words is used to refer to a previously mentioned noun.

In this sentence:

Moira is visiting her sister in Iowa.

Moira is the antecedent and her is the pronoun. For pronouns and antecedents to agree, they must match both in terms of both gender and plurality. Because Moira is a female and singular, the pronoun her is used. Were Moira visiting, along with a brother, the antecedent would then change to their.

The use of the singular they and their, etc. is currently acceptable in most circumstances, but please check with the particular test guidelines for writing to be sure.

The Standards of Written English

Aside from spelling, there are two other basic standards: capitalization and punctuation. When you are doing the writing, you’ll deal with these during the editing process. When you take a multiple-choice writing test, you may be asked to find punctuation and capitalization errors in a similar fashion.

Capitalization

Capitalization has several rules that must be followed. Most are quite simple and easy to remember. Always capitalize:

the first letter in a sentence
proper nouns (names, places, etc.)
titles
government entities
holidays
organizations
races/ethnicities

Although this list is not exhaustive, these are the major capitalization rules you’ll need to know.

Punctuation

Punctuation is defined as the set of rules regulating a sentence’s structure. Punctuation is most frequently used to describe periods, question marks, and exclamation points, but may also be applied to commas, dashes, colons, and semicolons.

A period is used at the end of a declarative sentence.

A question mark is used to denote a question.

An exclamation point is used to indicate surprise, shock, or excitement.

Commas are used to separate parts of a sentence and should be read as a pause.

Dashes are used to indicate a break in a sentence or phrase. This may be an abrupt change of direction or even a continuing thought.

Colons are most frequently used to indicate that something comes next–sometimes this is a list, sometimes a simple statement. If you see a colon, you know that something else is coming.

Semicolons are used to link two similar or related ideas. A correct semicolon use is the following:

Sarah did not go to the spelling bee; she was afraid of public speaking.

Incorrect use of the semicolon is shown here:

Andrew loved to lay tile; Andrew’s mother was a nurse.

Other Writing Concerns

When evaluating your writing or the writing of others, be sure to consider these parameters. They are practices that make writing clearer and more effective, and attending to them will help you score higher on writing tests.

Supporting Details

Not only must a piece of writing express a main idea, but it must also include support for that idea in the form of details. When reviewing another person’s writing, you may be asked to find these supporting details.

Identifying supporting details requires two simple steps:

Identify the thesis of a piece overall, or the topic sentence of a paragraph.
Identify parts of the piece or paragraph that support that argument.

Typically, supporting details contain some trace of facts, arguments, or illustrations, providing the reader with information to back up the claims being made.

Be sure to read and analyze the writing of successful authors to see how they use these details and practice their strategies in your own writing.

Unnecessary Information

Unnecessary information, in test-taking, is typically placed there to mislead the reader. When evaluating whether or not the information is necessary, the best question to ask is simply, “Is this relevant?” Is the point in keeping with the overall purpose of the paragraph or piece or is the point erroneous, or unrelated? If irrelevant, the information provided is unnecessary.

In your own writing, stick to tight, concise work. Although it may be tempting to add “fluff” to a piece to make it larger or (supposedly) grander, unnecessary information bogs down a piece and distracts the reader, rather than getting a point or idea across.

Writing Test-Taking Tips

In addition to considering all of the above guidelines for good writing, there are some things you can do before and during the test to help boost your score.

Practice Specific Skills

The writing portion of this test is intended to examine your ability to correctly read and synthesize information, with a focus on proper usage and English grammar. To practice, focus on proper capitalization, use of punctuation, spelling, and grammar conventions. This may be done through reading and analyzing what makes up a strong, compelling piece or by studying each individual aspect of English grammar.

Know the Rules of Standard English

Be sure to study the rules for correct grammar and usage in standard written English. Do not rely on the type of language you use in modern technology applications, such as texting and chatting. Some of these questions really do not have an error, so be very careful that the sentence actually needs a correction.

Find the “Best” Answer

In some cases, there will be multiple answers that seem to fit the question. In these situations, it is best to look at the question not as a series of one right answer and three wrong ones, but a series of answers that qualify as good, then better, then best. Read all of the available answers, and determine which one is not only correct, but that best fits, describes, or supports the question.

Deciding if There Is an Error

Some questions will try to confuse or hoodwink test-takers. These questions might highlight a supposed error within a text, giving you the option of either choosing a correction or leaving the question as-is. These questions can be extremely challenging, as it is easy to second guess your answer. When coming face to face with these questions, follow these steps:

Thoroughly read both the question and the passage or sentence (if applicable). Many times, the answer lies in the phrasing of the question.
Weigh each option carefully, paying attention to what “sounds right.” If the sentence does not appear to have any issues, do not second guess yourself: it likely does not have any issues.
Make a decision and move on. These questions, in particular, seem to invite agonizing over and constant back-and-forth. Resist the urge to harp on these, as this can waste valuable time, and the answer is likely to grow more muddled the longer it is picked apart.

Filling in the Blank—Sentences

Filling in the blanks for sentence questions requires that test-takers follow the same basic rule: test all available answers. Do not just leap to the first answer that looks good. Instead, plug each answer into the blank space and test them out. Does it make sense within the context of the sentence? Is it a proper part of speech in that context? Does it sound correct when it is all read together? Answering these questions will eliminate wrong answers and will help you gain confidence in the conclusion you develop.

Practice Taking Notes on Things You Read

The test may examine your note-taking and analytical skills by providing a passage, and asking which facts from that passage would be best to save as notes. In these questions, read over the material, and decide which answer best describes, supports, and explains the topic at hand. This will be the answer that best fulfills the requirements of note-taking.