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Original poster

Test your grammar - Guardian test

207 replies

Feenie · 09/02/2013 11:39

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.

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Original poster
Feenie · 09/02/2013 18:17

Awwwwwwww!

OP posts:
mrz · 09/02/2013 18:20

sorry Sad

ClayDavis · 09/02/2013 18:24

We had Haydn Richards Junior English, I think.

sydlexic · 09/02/2013 18:30

14 for me and DS 12. Educated guesses for me,

mrz · 09/02/2013 18:31

We still use those Clay

ClayDavis · 09/02/2013 18:36

Did find one in Waterstones the other day. I suspect you use it more progressively than being handed the text book and an exercise book and having half an hour a week to work through it at your own pace.

Haberdashery · 09/02/2013 18:41

14/14! Quite pleased with that as I was at primary school in the 70s and don't think I have ever had a lesson on English grammar in my life. But I did learn Latin at secondary level which helped me with the gerund thing.

moonstorm · 09/02/2013 18:43

10/14 (could have been 12/14, but I doubted myself)

But I fail to see how knowing some of these will improve literacy. Technical knowledge will definitely be improved, but literacy is about being able to use the skills. You can have a technically gifted musician who does not play musically, or a less technically gifted musician who I would rather listen to because they make beautiful music.

I don't need to know a sentence contains a subordinate clause or is written in the active/ passive voice to write beautifully.

Spelling is very important. Reading lots and lots (that's for the teachers who hate 'got', 'lot' and 'nice' Grin)will help with writing and composing written work well. This grammar knowledge will aid grammar knowledge... There's a time and a place for that...

Shallishanti · 09/02/2013 18:44

<a class="break-all" href="http://web.archive.org/web/20100420034708/www.stcustards.free-online.co.uk/topp/latin/latin2.htm" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">If any of you have trouble identifying a gerund

bigbadbarry · 09/02/2013 18:49

14/14 but I should hope so, I am a copyeditor

ChristmasJubilee · 09/02/2013 18:55

11 but I'm very old!

BillyBollyDandy · 09/02/2013 18:56

11/14

Went to a grammar school, and got an Eng. Lit. degree from a RG uni.
Whoopsie Blush

GW297 · 09/02/2013 18:58

I only got 11 too!

vamosbebe · 09/02/2013 18:59

Knowing your grammar can help learn a foreign language. All my Spanish 10 year olds can string complex sentences together because they learn their own grammar, whereas I was buggered when it came to learning French at the same age as, suddenly, we had all these rules and weird words like 'adverb', 'gerund' and 'passive voice', the majority of us were flumoxed!

OhYouBadBadKitten · 09/02/2013 19:08

I got 13, got the prepositional one wrong. A couple of years ago I would have got significantly fewer but I work in a primary school and pay close attention in the grammar lessons!

blibblibs · 09/02/2013 19:14

Your not Dreams, I got 7 Sad

Jux · 09/02/2013 19:25

Shallishanti, as soon as people started talking about gerunds, I thought of Molesworth. We didn't cover gerunds at school, but reading that very page prompted me to ask my dad, and lo! all was revealed (well not really).

seeker · 09/02/2013 19:30

I got 12- but I disagree with the test on the abstract/collective noun section. How arrogant is that!

JenaiMorris · 09/02/2013 19:31

Me too Blibb!

seeker · 09/02/2013 19:34

But I know about freinds because of my extensive knowledge of th Shortbread Eating Primer.........

seeker · 09/02/2013 19:35

Gerunds! I meant gerunds!

ClayDavis · 09/02/2013 19:35

Was a bit sneaky that one seeker. I'm not sure 'polluted' is a very accurate antonym for 'hygienic'.

DreamsTurnToGoldDust · 09/02/2013 19:40

Oh well Bil and Jen, don't worry we'll survive! Despite my rather lax learning in the 70s and 80s I've managed to scrape a living! Grin.

Wellthen · 09/02/2013 19:44

13 out of 14, got the gerund wrong as I checked afterwards. I'm quite impressed actually as I don't have an English degree and dont really remember being taught grammar at school. I'm a child of the 90s so just before the literacy hour.

I am a primary school teacher though and have been upping my grammar content in response to this new test (I teach year 5). For the posters who asked if it was year 6 standard I would say yes, after grammar teaching I would expect year 6s to be getting around 10 out of 14 but it isnt reflective of the example materials we've been given. They focus more on word class, missing punctuation and putting correct words in to make a sentence make sense.

Anja1Cam · 09/02/2013 19:47

13 yay - English is my third language... Grin

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