Final Exam Study Guide

English 83 / Fall 2008

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Final Exam Study Guide Courtesy of Yesenia and Stefany, and all SI participants.

Subjects, Verbs, and Prepositions Subject = who or what a sentence is about. Verb = a) Action Verb – Shows what a subject is doing. b) Compound Verb – More than one verb attached to a subject. c) Helping Verb – Adds more information to main verbs. Prepositional Phrase = A group of words that begin with a preposition (under, in, after, and more examples on page 80 in Mosaics). Example sentence: Yesenia dances and runs to stay in shape, but she might try biking. Subject

Verb

Verb

Prep.

Prep.

Help. Verb

Fragments A fragment is an incomplete sentence. There are 5 types of fragment error: a) Afterthought fragment – Occurs when you add an idea to a sentence w/out proper punctuation; it’s like an extra, unrelated thought. Example: He works at the garage. And the bank. b) –ing fragment – Words that end in –ing are forms of verbs that cannot be the main verb. Example: Breaking the sidewalk. The oak tree is large and strong. c) to fragment – Occurs when “to” is added to a verb. This combination cannot be the main verb. Example: Some people have moved. To the other side of town. d) Dependent clause fragment – Occurs with a group of words that begin with a subordinating conjunction (list on page 84 in Mosaics). Example: Because there are no malls here. We go to another city to shop. e) Relative clause fragment – A dependent clause that begins with a relative pronoun (who, whose, whom, that, or which). Example: The hardware store is on the corner. Which is a good location. To fix fragments, use one of these methods: 1) Connect the fragment to another sentence using punctuation. 2) Turn the fragment into an independent clause with its own subject and verb. Comma Splices and Fused Sentences Comma splice = Two complete sentences split by a comma. Example: I went to school, I was sick. Fused Sentence = Two complete sentences without any punctuation separating them. Example: My dog is a Boston terrier he loves to swim. To fix these errors, decide on a correction method:

English 83 / Fall 2008

a) b) c) d)

Comma + FANBOY – I went to school, but I was sick. Period – I went to school. I was sick. Semicolon – I went to school; I was sick. Create a dependent clause – I went to school even though I was sick or Even though I was sick, I went to school.

Verbs There are two types of verbs, regular and irregular. 1) Regular = Regular verbs are changed to the past tense by adding –ed or sometimes simply –d to the end of the word. Examples: jump, look, call (jumped, looked, called). 2) Irregular = Irregular verbs do not become past tense by adding –ed. Examples = bite, choose, begin (bit, chose, began). Remember that irregular verbs have three tenses; present, past, and past participle. Past participle verbs require the helping verbs have, has, or had. There are two verb pairs that are tricky, so study them closely. Lie/Lay: The verb lie refers to people (for example, I need to lie down). The verb lay refers to objects (for example, The boy will lay the picnic for us). The tenses for lie are lie (present), lay (past) and lain (past participle). The tenses for lay are lay (present), laid (past), and laid (past participle). Sit/Set: The verb sit refers to a person (for example, The tired man decided to sit down). The verb set refers to objects (for example, I really need to set these books down). The tenses for sit are sit (present), sat (past) and sat (past participle). The tenses for set are set (present), set (past) and set (past participle). Study the list of irregular verbs on pages 165-168 in Mosaics; there are a lot of them!

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