Test your grammar - Guardian test

[Feenie]

www.guardian.co.uk/teacher-network/teacher-blog/quiz/2013/feb/04/grammar-punctuation-quiz-test

Am relieved I scored 14 out of 14, since I am a Literacy cordinator!

I only knew what a gerund was because I remembered it from the English Language unit I had to study for my Lit degree - not sure it is of much use to your average 11 year old, really.

1. Not bad considering I have no idea what 'gerund' means. I'm 26, went to regular, good state schools.

Phew - 14 - I teach English as a foreign language so that was a relief - not that any of that stuff comes up in my day-to-day work anyway.

14 - English teacher and head of literacy. Phew!

13/14. Gove might have me back as a teacher should I want to go back.

Hmmm
I got 8.
I got everything wrong that asked something technical like active voice or subordinate. I don't understand any of the terms used. I was never taught anything like that at school.
I have 1992 grade B in English Lit & Lang and studied English no more.

I do have excellent grammar in daily life. I have to in my job.

the first question was a vocabulary test, not grammar and punctuation.

A 10/14 for me too ;0(

question 13 - i clicked the right answer and it registered something completely different!!!!

the worst thing was, it registered the most completely wrong answer.

i would have got 14 if it hadn't done that.
i was robbed.

Shattered - i had to think about terms, too. I was the same, 92 grade Bs and no further study. (although A-level German helped)

9/14

Never heard of a gerund.

14/14, yay! First year of GCSEs, so not the finest era for the teaching of English, but we had a teacher who believed in teaching grammar and slipped it into the cracks in the curriculum.

I also have a degree in English and some extremely pedantic friends.

11, didn't get mother-to-be, active voice or gerund.

I have an English lit degree but was never taught grammar (except the basics) at school or uni. I went to private school and we didn't have English language lessons. In other words I think I did ok!

10/14 for me too - another 60s/70s educated child who wasn't taught grammar - plus I did all my education through the medium of Welsh .

13/14 .Although we were taught these elements I have absolutely no recollection of it!! It just sticks with you. Certainly wasn't taught this stuff at junior school. Poor Year 6's. Why can't it be introduced at the start of KS3? We certainly need something. Standard of some NQT English worrying.

I got the one wrong about the foot of the stairs.
And the one about a collective abstract noun.

No idea what a gerund is never heard of it and my top mark at gcse was an A in English Lang!!

14/14 as I knew what answer they were wanting for things, but I don't agree with some of them, and I think it's a dreadful test for actually testing grammar and punctuation.

Several things described as 'sentences' have no full stops.

I think it's arguable as to whether 'team' is abstract or concrete. You might be able to see a team, but I think it's the players that you see; the concept 'team' is abstract to me. I can see how someone would argue the other way though.

'to the foot of the stairs' is surely two prepositional phrases, not one.

I am not convinced that 'He thought he might...' is a conditional sentence. If it had said 'He might...' then yes. But adding 'He thought...' beforehand surely makes it grammatically past tense, even if it happens to express a conditional idea.

And I think several of the questions are not really testing what they purport to test. A multiple choice test concentrating on grammatical terms doesn't seem to be effective in my mind, although I agree that some degree of terminology is needed.

8/14

product of crap merged 'we're closing this school next year so have all the teachers no-one else wants for your O levels/cses' comp here too.

it was good fun though

13/14 for me.

In Latin and English grammar, the gerund is a non-finite verb form used to make a verb phrase that can serve in place of a noun phrase. The English gerund ends in -ing (as in I enjoy playing football); the same verb form also serves as the English present participle (which has an adjectival or adverbial function), and as a verbal noun.

So there you are. Clear as mud!

Product of compulsory Latin.

Sparklingbrook I got 9 too, I am actually quite impressed I got that many correct!

12. Vague recollection of Latin (although most memories involve seeing how long a creme egg would last for)...