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Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Review Exercise Skills 1-5

This review exercise intends to measure your capability in mastering the previous skills which have been described before: Skill 1 Be Sure Sentence has a Subject and Verb, Skill 2 Be Careful of Object of Preposition, Skill 3 Be Careful of Appositives, Skill 4 Be Careful of Present Participles, and Skill 5 Be Careful of Past Participles.
Review Exercise (Skills 1-5): Indicate if the sentences are True or False. 





    Tuesday, February 12, 2013

    Exercise 5 Mastering Past Participles

    This exercise test you how far you understand the topic of past participle which often appears in the TOEFL test. Instruction: Each of the following sentences contains one or more past participles. Indicate if the sentences are True or False. 




      Sunday, February 10, 2013

      Skill 5 Be Careful of Past Participles

      Past participles can cause confusion in the structure section of the TOEFL because a just participle can be part of main verb or it can be an adjective. The past participle is the form of the verb that appears with have or be. It often ends in ed, but there are also many irregular past participles in English.

      Friday, February 8, 2013

      Exercise 4 Present Participle

      This exercise measures you how deep you understand the use of correct form of present participle in the sentence of TOEFL. If you find difficulty, you can re read the previous explanation, Skill 4 Be Careful of Present Participle. Each of the following sentences contains one or more present participles. Instruction: indicate if the sentences are True or False 




        Thursday, February 7, 2013

        Skill 4 Be Careful of Present Participles

        Present participle can cause confusion in the structure section of the TOEFL because a present participle can be a mistaken for a part of the verb. A present participle is the –ing form of the verb. It is a part of the verb when it is accompanied by some form of the verb be. 


                        verb
        The man is talking to his friend.
        In this sentence talking is part of the verb because it is accompanied by is.
                      Adj                           verb
        The man talking to his friend has a beard.

        In this sentence talking is an adjective and not part of the verb because it is not accompanied by some form of be. The verb in this sentence is has.


        Wednesday, February 6, 2013

        Exercise 3 Mastering Appositive

        Each of the following sentences contains an appositive. The problem of appositive is also often appears in the sentence of TOEFL. If you still find difficulty in this part, you can re read the previous explanationBe Careful of Apopositives. Instruction:  indicate if the sentences are True or False. 






        Skill 3 Be Careful of Appositives

        Appositives can cause confusion in the structure section of the TOEFL because an appositive can be mistaken for the subject of a sentence. An appositive is a noun that comes before or after another noun and has the same meaning.
         



         

         
         
         
         
        Sally, the best student in the class, got an A on the exam. 

        In this example Sally is the subject of the sentence and the best student in the class can easily be recognized as an appositive phrase because of the noun student and because of the commas. The sentence says that Sally and the best student in the class are the same thing. Note that if you leave out the appositive phrase, the sentence still makes sense (Sally got an A on the exam).
        The following example shows how an appositive can be confused with the subject of a sentence in the structure section of the TOEFL.

        .... George, is attending the lecture.
        (A) right now
        (B)  happily
        (C)  because of the time
        (D) my friend
        In this example you should recognize from the commas that George is not the subject of the sentence. George is an appositive. Because this sentence still needs a subject, the best answer is answer (D) my friend. Answer (A), (B), and (C) are incorrect because they are not subjects.

        Tuesday, February 5, 2013

        Exercise 2

        This exercise tests you how far you understand the skill  2 Be Careful of Object Preposition in the sentence of TOEFL. If you still find difficulty, you can re read the previous explanation. Instruction: Each of the following sentences contains one or more prepositional phrases. Then indicate if the sentences are True  or False .






        Sunday, February 3, 2013

        EXERCISE 1 Subject and Verb Agreement Quiz

        This Exercise tests you how far you understand the problem with one subject and verb that often appears on the structure section of TOEFL. When you find difficulty to answer these questions, you can flash black the previous explanation about Problem One Subject and Verb. Instruction: Underline the subjects once and the verbs twice in each of the following sentences. Then indicate if the sentences are True (T) or False (F).



        Skill 2 Be Careful of Object of Prepositions


        An object of a preposition is a noun or a pronoun that comes after a preposition such as in, at, of, to, by, behind, on, and so on to form a prepositional phrase.
        (After his exams) Tom will take a trip (by boat).
        This example contains two objects of prepositions. Exams is the object of the preposition after and boat is the object of the preposition by.

        Friday, February 1, 2013

        Skill 1 Be Sure the Sentence Has a Subject and a Verb


        Some sentences in English have just one subject and verb, and it is very important for you to find the subject and verb. In some sentences it is easy to find the subject and verb. However, certain structures such as objects of prepositions, appositives, and participle can cause confusion in locating the subject and verb because each of these structures can look like a subject or verb. The object of the preposition can be mistaken for the subject; an appositive can also be mistaken for the subject; a participle can be mistaken for a verb.

        Strategies for the Written Expression Questions


        1. First look at each of the four underlined words or group of words. You want to see if you can spot which of the four answer choices is not correct.
        2. If you have been unable to find the error by looking only at the four underlined expressions, then read the complete sentence. Some underlined expressions are incorrect because of something in another part of the sentence.