This quiz addresses many of the grammar issues that English 102 students face at the college level.
1
“Certainly, Bob knew that the storm was coming.”
Which of the following statements is incorrect?
Certainly is a synonym for surely.
Bob closed the shutters on his house to prepare for the storm.
The word “knew” should be spelled “new”.
The word “that” could be eliminated to tighten up the sentence.
2
“The brown box buckled under the pressure caused by Sam’s foot.”
Which of the following statements is incorrect?
The word “foot” could be substituted with “feet”.
“brown box” should be capitalized.
The apostrophe in “Sam’s” should come after the second “s”.
The word “pressure” could be substituted with “weight”.
3
“The best thing that happened to me on Saturday was like the restaurant I ate at, the new pair of shoes I bought and that it stayed sunny the entire day.”
Which statement(s) is true?
This is a run-on sentence, comma series missing, ending punctuation such as a period is missing.
The word “like” is a filler word, the word Saturday should be capitalized and so should the article beginning of the sentence.
“I bought” is informal and should be replaced with “that I purchased”.
All of the above.
4
“Barry loves red berries so much that she asked Shari to make the famous Barry Cake.”
Which of the following statements is incorrect?
“Barry Cake” should be lowercase.
“That” should be changed to “which”.
“make” should be changed to “bake”.
"Barry" in “Barry Cake” should be spelled “Berry”.
5
“(1) The iphone was made for shy people. (2) It was also one of the world’s greatest innovations.”
Which of the following statements is correct?
Sentence two is an assumption.
Sentence one is a fact.
The “p” in iphone should be capitalized.
These two sentences don’t belong together.
6
“Perhaps Penny didn’t like Paul’s plan because it required more work.”
Which of the following statements is incorrect?
Comma should be placed after “plan”.
This sentence is imperfect.
“Penny” shouldn’t be capitalized.
The word “perhaps” should be substituted with a different transition.
7
“The students’ garden was filled with lemons grown from there hard work and perseverance.”
Which of the following statements is incorrect?
The apostrophe in “students’” should come before the second “s”.
“perseverance” can be substituted with “persistence”.
“there” should be spelled “their”.
This sentence contains several errors.
8
“The bees stung the cow with such rigor that it leaped back and forth on its hind legs not knowing that its movements were the causation of the buzzing uproar.”
Which of the following statements is incorrect?
"Knowing" can be replaced with "realizing".
The word “stung” should be replaced with “sting”.
The word "buzzing" can be eliminated from the sentence.
The apostrophe is missing from the word "bees".
9
“Tippy’s tap shoes clicked and clacked so against the marble floor that the echoed performance could be heard at the other end of the building.”
Which of the following statements is incorrect?
Substituting the word "other" with "opposite" makes the sentence more formal.
The word “tap” could be eliminated.
The word “marble” could be eliminated.
The words “clicked and clacked” are adequate substitutes for the word “collide”.
10
“Each fluffy cloud disappeared, overshadowed by each drop of rain that billowed from the sky.”
Which of the following statements is incorrect?
“billowed” can be replaced with “belted”.
“billowed” can be replaced with “pummeled”.
“billowed” can be replaced with “fell”.
“billowed” can be replaced with “skipped”.
