Was watching Study Room’s good friend Pornsak’s Food Source.He was explaining the various uses of Octopus. Quiz time- do you know what’s the plural of octopus? Answer: *Definitely correct: Octopuses -Chambers 21st century dictionary, Compact Oxford, Fowler’s Modern English Usage list “octopuses” as the only acceptable plural of the word.*Rare use of this form: Octopodes[…]
Spotted a grammar mistake while watching Crime Watch. What’s the mistake? Crime Watch does a great job educating the public on law and order in Singapore, but it should get a new transcriber. (See photo in previous post) The error: I saw him took. Correct: I saw him take. After verbs of perception (see watch,[…]
Derek who is ________ university undergraduate spoke to us for ________ hour during Assembly. 1) an…a 2) a…an 3) a…a 4) an…an The answer is 2. Rule: Use “a” before words that start with a consonant sound and “an” before words that start with a vowel sound. -Hour starts with a vowel sound, since it[…]
Question-tag grammar questions are easy. Usually it is: Subject+verb (positive), (negative) verb +subject? He is fat, isn’t he? Subject +verb (negative), (positive) verb +subject? He doesn’t like to be called fat, does he? There are exceptions though. Be extremely careful when you see questions which use adverbs which have a negative sense such as “never”,[…]
Whether you use “bring” or “take” depends on your point of reference for the action. -You ask people to BRING things to where you are. -You TAKE things to the place you are going. For example: Please bring the files to my table. I am feeling lazy; I wish someone would bring me dinner. (coming[…]
Many students find this part of the paper tough. As with all components of the paper, you have to read, speak and write often to grasp the language.Still, lots of practices help too. The following questions are a tad tricky. Can you tell me the right answers? 1. Beauty couldn’t return home. She had to[…]
Have you ever wondered this- why are we IN a car but ON a bus?To help you remember this in a more logical manner, try this: -We usually step up the bus, so we are ON it, right? -We don’t step up a car or a taxi, we get into them. So we are IN[…]
This is a question from a school revision paper which I will go through with my students this Saturday. Eating and drinking is/are not allowed in the sports hall. There is a heated debate on this question. One camp says the answer should be “is” because you categorise eating and drinking as one activity. The[…]
The best way to prepare for the cloze passage component is to read more. The answer will come naturally to you because you are familiar with the sentence structures and usage of the words. That said, there’s also a technique to cloze passage. If you don’t know the answer, read what was before and after[…]
Collective nouns are nouns which stand for a group or collection of people or things. They include words such as audience, committee, police, crew, family, government, group, and team. Most collective nouns can be singular or plural. However, there are a few collective nouns that are used only in the plural form, the most common[…]