English and Language Usage Study Guide for the TEAS

Knowledge of Language: Grammar and Usage

A written piece can contain important and valuable information, but, if it is not written well, its message can be lost. The TEAS 7 tests your ability to identify cases in which mistakes in grammar, usage, and structure occur.

Grammar

To answer grammar questions correctly, it is important to be able to find places in passages where a writer has failed to make the message clear to the reader. Often, a simple word replacement or sentence restructuring will fix the problem. Here are a few areas in which proper grammar makes a huge difference.

Double Negatives

Using two negative words in one sentence changes the meaning and is not grammatically correct. Consider this sentence:

The teens didn’t have no place to go.

As written, the message is that the teens did have a place to go, because the writer used two negatives (didn’t and no). These two words create a positive by canceling each other out. The sentence can be made grammatically correct (and clear) in either of these ways, using only one negative word:

“The teens didn’t have a place to go.”
“The teens had no place to go.”

Careful Use of Pronouns

Pronouns are great little words. They can help to make speech and writing less wordy and stilted, but they can also cause confusion. Look at this sentence:

Paul told his friend, Mark, that he could not go to the concert because there were no tickets left.

So, who is it that cannot go to the concert—Paul or Mark? This is not clear as written. You would need to specify who did not have a ticket. One way to do this is by creating a quotation within the sentence:

Paul told Mark, “You cannot go to the concert…”

Paul told Mark, “I cannot go to the concert…”

This makes the meaning clearer. You can also simply repeat the name of the person who cannot go by writing “Paul told Mark that Mark could not go to the concert…”, though that can get wordy and seem repetitive, which is why pronouns are useful.

Complete Sentences

Sentence structure and organization can be a common problem in writing. It is important to check that sentences are complete and are punctuated correctly. Incomplete or fragment sentences are missing vital information needed to make meaning, and misused commas can create comma splices.

A Complete Sentence

The children played happily on the beach.

A Fragment or Incomplete Sentence

Because the ice cream vendor ran out of ice cream.

To fix a fragment or incomplete sentence, determine what is missing to make it complete (does it need a verb, a subject, or to express a complete thought?). In the sentence above, there is no complete thought. The reader doesn’t know what happened as a result of the ice cream vendor running out of ice cream and the word because indicates the answer should be in the sentence. So, let’s do this:

“The little boy cried because the ice cream vendor ran out of ice cream.”

Adding “The little boy cried” gives context to the sentence and helps the reader create meaning.

A Sentence with a Comma Splice

Jonah was thinking of taking Medieval Art History, he’s really interested in old stained glass.

A comma splice occurs when two independent clauses are joined by just a comma. To fix one, either add a coordinating conjunction after the comma, replace the comma with a semicolon, or create two separate sentences by replacing the comma with a period.

“Jonah was thinking of taking Medieval Art History, and he’s really interested in old stained glass.”

“Jonah was thinking of taking Medieval Art History; he’s really interested in old stained glass.”

“Jonah was thinking of taking Medieval Art History. He’s really interested in old stained glass.”

Transitions

Transitions are words or phrases that help move the reader from one sentence or idea to the next. They indicate the relationship between ideas in a text and help the reader follow the writer’s train of thought. Transitions can be words or phrases and they may be used within a paragraph to indicate a connection between ideas or at the beginning or end of a paragraph to indicate a shift in ideas. Here are some examples of transitions and the type of relationship they create:

To show causation: because, since, therefore, as a result, consequently
To show chronology: after, during, while, next, in the meantime, before
To show contrast: yet, although, but, despite, however, in contrast
To show similarity: and, likewise, similarly, in the same way, also
To show intensification or importance: surely, in fact, of course, yes/no, to repeat

Tense

The form of the verb you use indicates when something happened and can also tell something about the order of the action in relation to other things that happened. Here is a quick study of the various tenses and what they indicate.

Tense	What you write	When it is happening
Present	She looks	happening right now
Present perfect	She has looked	happened recently
Past	She looked	happened in the past
Past perfect	She had looked	happened in the past before something else that happened in the past
Future	She will look	happening in the future
Future perfect	She will have looked	happening in the future before something else that is happening in the future

Diction

Knowing the purpose and intended audience for a piece of writing will affect the writer’s word choice, or diction. If the writing is to inform but the audience is young, easier diction will be used so the audience can understand what is being discussed. If the writing is to entertain, then less formal diction might be used than would be found in an academic piece of writing, for example. Diction refers not only to the word choice, but also to the arrangement of the words within a sentence.

Run-On Sentences

This occurs when you have a comma splice or when you just put two complete sentences together without any punctuation at all. Here is an example:

Sue went home she was tired.

A run-on sentence is also created when you try to put too many thoughts or details in one sentence, separating them by numerous ands, ors, or other connecting words. Here’s a great example:

First I went home and then I ate dinner and then I took a shower but the water was cold so I didn’t finish and I was dirty the next day.

Other Writing Conventions

To be grammatically correct, you must not only use the parts of speech appropriately, but you also need to consider things like the location of these words and whether or not they “agree” with words around them in a sentence. Here are three of the most common language usage concerns.

Subject-Verb Agreement

The verb and noun in a sentence must match in number; if the noun references a plural subject, so must the verb. This can be anything from “they are” (as opposed to the incorrect “they is”) to more complicated forms, such as “The group of tenants was going to court.” (It should not be “were going to court” because the verb is agrees with the subject―group, not tenants. Tenants just tells what kind of group it is.)

Pronoun-Antecedent Agreement

The pronoun should be the right one to use with the noun (antecedent) to which it refers. This can become confusing when you are gender-inclusive. For the purpose of the TEAS 7 test, the singular pronouns they and them, etc., are considered appropriate. You still need to be aware of some other standard pronoun rules that have not been revised. For example, when referring to an inanimate object, the pronoun it is correct, not he or she. Just be sure you know to what or to whom the pronoun refers.

Split infinitive

This is something to avoid. An infinitive is a verb with the word to before it. Examples are to go and to sing. Splitting an infinitive means a word has been placed between the word “to” and the verb in a sentence. Although many writers do this, it is not grammatically correct. The phrase “to quickly go” would be an example of a split infinitive. The grammatically correct phrase would be “to go quickly.”