This set mixes the five skills from grammar for clear meaning: tense, articles, subject-verb agreement, linking and modal verbs. The questions run from easy to harder. Write your own answer first, then open the explanation.
Keep a short list of the error types you miss. The mistake log and retest queue is a simple place to store them, and the writing revision compare view lets you compare a corrected paragraph with your first draft.
Questions
1. Choose the correct form: By the time I reached the cinema, the film (started / had started).
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had started. Two past events: the film began first, then I arrived. The earlier event takes the past perfect. Write: By the time I reached the cinema, the film had started.
2. Fill the gaps with a, an, the or nothing: She bought ___ umbrella because ___ sky was grey.
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an … the. Umbrella starts with a vowel sound and is new information, so an. Sky is a single thing both speaker and reader know, so the. Full sentence: She bought an umbrella because the sky was grey.
3. Choose: The price of the tickets (is / are) rising.
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is. Cross out of the tickets. The subject is price, which is singular.
4. Join the two sentences to show contrast: He studied for weeks. He did not pass the test.
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Although he studied for weeks, he did not pass the test. Another correct version: He studied for weeks, but he did not pass the test. Do not use both although and but in the same sentence.
5. Choose the most suitable modal: Dark clouds are gathering, so it ___ rain soon. (must / may / will)
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may. Dark clouds are evidence of a possibility, not a certainty. Will would claim to know the future, and must is for conclusions about what is already true.
6. Correct the error: If she will call, I will answer.
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If she calls, I will answer. After if, use a present form for future meaning. The will belongs in the main clause.
7. Correct the error: Despite the weather was cold, we swam.
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Despite the cold weather, we swam. or Although the weather was cold, we swam. Despite needs a noun or an -ing form. If you want a full clause, use although.
8. Correct the agreement: Neither the teacher nor the students was late.
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Neither the teacher nor the students were late. With neither … nor, the verb agrees with the nearest noun, here students, which is plural.
9. Correct all errors: Yesterday I have seen an accident near school. Driver of the car were shocked.
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Yesterday I saw an accident near the school. The driver of the car was shocked. Four changes: (1) saw, because yesterday is a finished time; (2) the school, a known place; (3) The driver, a singular countable noun needs a determiner; (4) was, because the subject is driver, not car.
10. Rewrite the paragraph with correct tense and links: The lights are off, so they will be asleep. They went to bed early because they were tired, so they woke up at dawn.
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The lights are off, so they must be asleep. They went to bed early because they were tired, and they may wake up at dawn. Changes: must be for a conclusion from evidence; the original used because and so together, which muddles cause and result, so the second link becomes and; the final clause is a prediction, so may wake up fits. Other natural versions exist if the meaning stays clear.
If you got these wrong
Match each error type to its lesson and repeat a few fresh sentences of your own.
| If you missed | Go to |
|---|---|
| Questions 1, 6 and part of 9 (time order, finished time words, if-clauses) | Choose tense to express a time relationship |
| Questions 2 and part of 9 (a, an, the, no article) | Use articles with countable nouns |
| Questions 3, 8 and part of 9 (finding the subject) | Repair subject-verb agreement |
| Questions 4, 7 and part of 10 (contrast, cause, result) | Link clauses with the intended contrast or cause |
| Questions 5 and 10 (certainty and possibility) | Use modal verbs to distinguish certainty and possibility |
When you have corrected the errors, rewrite one of the short paragraphs from your own work using the same rules. That checks that you can apply the idea and not only spot it.
Repeated error types can be hard to see alone, because you read what you meant to write. A teacher reading your own sentences in online one-to-one English as a Second Language tuition can point the pattern out.