Hey y'all!
There are three things in this world I despise: lizards, colored toilets, and grammar. Grammar doesn't come easy unless you memorize your rules, or you're a genius. But to be fair, words just aren't my thing. I say words like "y'all" and "boughten", and I didn't even know "boughten" wasn't a word until I was a senior in high school. You learn something new everyday....
In class this week, we had a grammar review. The TA's are great because I really learned a lot from their grammar knowledge. We took a pretest in preparation for the real test this weekend. To my surprise, I actually didn't do that bad! With some studying and practice, I should do quite well!
One thing I am really good at is figuring out what kind of sentences are simple, complex, compound, or compound-complex. I take pride in the fact I do well at recognizing those. Identifying these kind of sentences is all about knowing the difference between clauses and phrases. Is that a dependent clause or independent? Is that even a clause or is it a phrase? If you get that down, you are going to ace this section of the test! Know your sentence types, so you can avoid creating run-on sentences in business letters or proposals in the future.
I don't know about y'all, but I haven't taken the grammar test yet. I'm saving myself from agony until Monday morning. I am going to use my skills of knowing my sentence types to my advantage. But that alone will not get me the grade I want or need, so I am going to practice, practice, practice. While everyone is at their Super Bowl parties, I will be sitting on the couch practicing my grammar, rocking my Texans jersey. Good luck to everyone who hasn't taken the exam yet! Hopefully studying and going to class will be enough to prepare for this grammar test!
I know the feeling. For me, math doesn't come too easily, especially compared to my younger brother (but then, just about everything seems to come easily to him). I can tell that you've got those sentence types down, and I'm sure you can figure that other stuff out just as well. Good luck!
ReplyDeleteI think some words, even though they may not be in the dictionary, are legitimate; e.g. y'all. Fixin' on the other hand is still difficult to hear said without bringing a smile to my face. Anyway, we all have things to work on and it seems you have discovered a talent for distinguishing complex sentences from simple sentences with a prepositional phrase. That skill will be handy on the test. Good luck on the test Monday!
ReplyDeleteWell Devin, I know you did better than I did at the grammar test. I guess your plan to skip the Super-Bowl and study instead was a good one. It was a blow-out anyway. I will be retaking the exam again in three weeks. Maybe the Sunday before I will wear my Patriots Jersey to see if that brings me any additional luck.
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