Computerized pre-professional skills test

The multiple-choice section is designed to measure an examinees ability to use tankard written English correctly and effectively. This section is divided into two parts: usage and sentence correction. In the usage questions, examinees are asked to recognize errors in mechanics, in structural and grammatical relationships, and in idiomatic expressions or word choice and they are also asked to identify sentences that have no error and that meet the conventions of standard written English.

The sentence correction questions require examinees to select, from among the choices written English; in some cases, the phrase or sentence is correct and most effective s stated. Examinees are not required to have a knowledge of formal grammatical terminology. The essay section assesses an examinees ability to write effectively in a limited period of time. The essay topic invites examinees to draw from personal experience, observation, or reading to support a position with specific reasons and examples. This test may contain some questions that will not count toward your score.

Examinees should write only on the topic assigned, address all the points presented in the topic, and support generalizations with specific examples. Before beginning to write, examinees should read the topic and organize their thoughts carefully. Experienced teachers read and evaluate each essay holistically (that is, with a single score for overall quality) under carefully controlled conditions designed to ensure fair and reliable scoring.

Acknowledging that writing comprises a number of features that are not independent of one another, scorers base their Judgments on an assessment of such features as quality of insight or central idea, clarity, consistency of point of view, cohesiveness, strength and logic of supporting information, rhetorical force, appropriateness of diction and syntax, and correctness of mechanics and usage. II. Structural Relationships Identify Errors in Comparison Coordination Correlation Negation Parallelism Subordination Ill.

Word Choice and Mechanics – Word Choice – Idiomatic expressions – Commonly confused words – Wrong word use – Redundancy – Mechanics – Capitalization – Punctuation – Commas – Semicolons – Apostrophes Topics Covered Representative descriptions of topics covered in each category are provided below. *In the multiple-choice section, some questions will not contain an error; such questions are considered No Error questions. All of the No Error questions will be reported in Category Ill. * l. Grammatical Relationships – Adjectives Adverbs – Nouns – Agreement – Pronouns – Proper use – Verbs ; Identify sentences free from error IV.

Essay ; Write an essay that is appropriate for the assigned task and for an audience of educated adults ; Organize and develop ideas logically, making clear ; Provide and sustain a clear focus or thesis ; Use supporting reasons, examples, and details to develop clearly and logically the ideas presented in the essay ; Demonstrate facility in the use of language and the ability to use a variety of sentence structures ; Construct effective sentences that are generally free of errors in standard written English Form – Tense 2 Sample Test Questions The sample questions that follow illustrate the types of multiple-choice questions in the test.

They are not, however, representative of the entire scope of the test in either content or difficulty. Answers with explanations follow the questions. There are additional sample questions found in the Pre- Professional Skills Test: Writing (0720) Test at a Glance. Directions: In each of the sentences that follow, four portions are underlined. Read each sentence and decide whether any of the underlined parts contains a grammatical construction, a word use, or an instance of incorrect or omitted punctuation or capitalization that would be inappropriate in carefully written English. If so, highlight the underlined portion that contains the error.

To highlight an answer choice, click on any part of the underlined portion you wish to highlight. To change your highlight, click on a different underlined portion of the sentence. If there are no errors in the underlined portion, click on ” No Error. ” No sentence has more than one error. Part A: Usage (Suggested time – 13 minutes) Remember, try to answer every question. The error in this sentence occurs in the third underlined hospice. The phrase ” annually each year” is redundant, since ” annually’ and ” each year” convey the same information. The sentence would be correct with either ” annually’ or ” each year” appearing in the third underlined choice. The error is one of diction, or word choice. 3 2.

On the computer screen you will see the following: The error in this sentence occurs in the fourth underlined choice. The pronoun ” it” is incorrectly used to refer to two nouns, ” country’ and ” time. ” The pronoun required here is the plural ” them. ” 4 other counties. PRAXIS and THE PRAXIS SERIES are trademarks of TEST. 8601 . On the computer screen you will see the following: The error occurs in the first underlined choice. In the phrase ” those who win,” the pronoun ” those” indicates the people who win prizes. But the magazine will not print the people who win; it will print what the winners have written, or the submissions of those who win prizes. The error in this question is the illogical use of a pronoun.

Note that in the second underlined choice you are required to determine whether a punctuation mark-? the underlined semicolon-? is correct or incorrect. In this instance, the semicolon is used correctly. 4. On the computer screen you will see the following: Because this sentence contains no grammatical, idiomatic, logical, or structural errors, the best answer is ” No error. ” Note that in the second underlined choice you are required to determine whether the underlined letter-? a lowercase o-? needs to be capitalized, and that in the fourth underlined choice you are asked to determine whether the sentence requires some mark of punctuation in the underlined space.

In this sentence, the use of the lowercase o is correct because ” ordinance” is not a proper noun, and no comma is required after ” candles. ” 5. On the computer screen you will see the following: The error in this sentence occurs in the second underlined choice. The singular verb ” saves” does not agree in number with its subject, the plural noun ” geese. ” The verb required here is the plural verb ” save. ” 7 Part B: Sentence Correction (Suggested time – 25 minutes) the sentence or the entire sentence is underlined. Beneath each sentence you will find five ways of writing the underlined part. The first of these repeats the original, but the other four are different.

If you think the original sentence is better than any of the suggested hangers, you should choose the first answer choice; otherwise you should select the best answer from one of the other choices. This is a test of correctness and effectiveness of expression. In choosing answers, follow the requirements of standard written English; pay attention to acceptable usage in grammar, diction (choice of words), sentence construction, and punctuation. Choose the answer that expresses most effectively what is presented in the original sentence; this answer should be clear and exact, without awkwardness, ambiguity, or redundancy. 6. On the computer screen you will see the following: This sentence presents no problem of structure or logic. The verb tense is correct, and the use of the adverb ” passionately’ is also correct in this context.

In the second option and in the fifth option, the verb form is correct, but the adjective ” passionate” is incorrectly used instead of the adverb. The third and fourth options use the correct adverb but use incorrect verb forms, ” did spoke out” and ” has spoke out. ” Thus, the best answer is the first option, ” spoke out passionately. ” 8 7. On the computer screen you will see the following: The problem in this sentence concerns parallelism and agreement in pronoun number. The underlined portion of the sentence uses the singular pronoun, ” one,” which correctly agrees with its antecedent, ” consumer. ” However, in the a subject in the second part of the sentence.

To create a sentence free of agreement faults, you must look for a choice that contains both ” we” and the plural of ” consumer. ” The last option, ” As consumers, we can accept” is the only one that corrects the agreement problem and has a phrase parallel to ” we can reject them,” and is thus the correct answer. 9 8. On the computer screen you will see the following: The first option presents two major problems: it is not a omelet sentence, and the phrase ” without … Hardly’ is not idiomatic. Although the second, third, and fourth options are complete sentences, each uses ” hardly’ in an equally unidiomatic construction. The fifth option, the best answer, is an idiomatic and complete sentence. 10 9.

On the computer screen you will see the following: The first option, the best answer, is both logical and idiomatic: the use of the construction ” safe for one person but not for another” expresses an opposition between the two different effects some mushrooms have on people in general. The second, third, and fourth options change another” to ” the other” (second and third options) or to ” some other” (fourth option), thus suggesting incorrectly that one particular person is being discussed. In the third, fourth, and fifth options the appropriate conjunction ” but” is changed to ” and. ” The fifth option changes the meaning of the sentence by introducing a new subject, ” some (other mushrooms). ” This section presents an essay topic and sample essay responses along with the standards used in scoring the essays.

When you read these sample responses, keep in mind that they will be less polished than if they had been developed at home, edited, and carefully presented. The examinees does not know what question will be asked and must decide, on the spot, how to respond. Readers take these circumstances into account when scoring the essays; they have been trained to Judge the overall quality rather than to attempt to count errors. Each essay will be scored holistically, on the basis of its total quality. In computing your total Computerized Pre-professional Skills Test: Writing score, the essay score is combined with the score for the multiple-choice part of the Writing test.

Readers will assign scores based on the following scoring dude. Scoring Guide A 4 essay demonstrates competence in response to the assignment. An essay in this category ; states or implies the writer’s position or thesis ; shows control in the organization and development of ideas ; explains some key ideas, supporting them with adequate reasons, examples, or details ; displays adequate use of language ; shows control of grammar, usage, and mechanics, but may display errors A 3 essay demonstrates some competence in response to the assignment but is obviously flawed. An essay in this category reveals one or more of the following weaknesses: