SET 19 – TEAS 7 English: Grammar & Punctuation

Noun

Person, place, thing, or idea

Pronoun

Word that replaces a noun

Subject

Who or what the sentence is about

Predicate

The action or state of being

Verb

Action or state of being

Adjective

Describes a noun

Adverb

Describes a verb, adjective, or adverb

Preposition

Shows relationship (in, on, at, under)

Conjunction

Connects words or clauses (and, but, or)

Interjection

Emotion word (wow!, oh!)

Subject-verb agreement

Singular subject needs singular verb

Singular verb clue

Ends in “s” (he walks)

Plural verb clue

No “s” (they walk)

Pronoun-antecedent agreement

Pronoun must match noun in number

Independent clause

Can stand alone as a sentence

Dependent clause

Cannot stand alone

Comma in a series

Used between 3+ items

Comma after introductory phrase

“After school, I studied.”

Comma before FANBOYS

When joining two independent clauses

FANBOYS

For, And, Nor, But, Or, Yet, So

Comma misuse trap

Do NOT use comma between subject and verb

Apostrophe for ownership

Girl’s book (singular)

Apostrophe plural possession

Girls’ room (plural)

Its vs it’s

Its = possession; it’s = it is

Your vs you’re

Your = possession; you’re = you are

Their vs there vs they’re

Their = possession, there = place, they’re = they are

Who vs whom

Who = subject; whom = object

Then vs than

Then = time; than = comparison

Effect vs affect

Effect = noun; affect = verb

To vs too vs two

To = direction, too = also, two = number

Hyphen use

Join two words acting together (well-known author)

Colon use

Introduces a list after a full sentence

Semicolon use

Joins two related independent clauses

Quotation mark use

Enclose spoken or quoted text

Comma with quotes

Comma inside quotes in American English

Capitalization of proper nouns

Names, places, titles

Sentence fragment

Missing subject or verb

Run-on sentence

Clauses incorrectly joined

Parallel structure

Items in list must match grammatically

Modifier placement

Describing word must be placed next to what it modifies

Dangling modifier

Modifier with no clear subject

Misplaced modifier

Modifier too far from what it describes

Active voice

Subject performs action

Passive voice

Subject receives action

Formal writing style

Avoid slang, contractions, first person

Informal writing style

Casual language acceptable

Homophones

Words that sound alike but differ in meaning

Verb tense consistency

Keep same tense throughout sentence

Present tense

Action happening now

Past tense

Action already happened

Future tense

Action will happen

Irregular verb warning

Does not follow normal -ed pattern

Proofreading strategy

Read sentence out loud to hear errors

TEAS trap: Comma before “because”

Only if needed for clarity

TEAS trap: Semicolon cannot join dependent clause

Must have two independent clauses

TEAS trap: Apostrophe never makes a word plural

Only shows possession

TEAS trap: Subject after prepositional phrase

Ignore phrase to find true subject