Geraldine Woods - Grammar - 1001 Practice Questions For Dummies (+ Free Online Practice)

Descriptions and complements: Adding to the bare bones of the sentence, the subject-verb pair are complements and descriptions. In Chapters 8and 9, you distinguish between an adjective and an adverb, select the appropriate form for formal speech and writing, and place it in the right spot. In Chapter 10, you work on comparisons, so that yours are clear and logical.

Capitalization: Names, quotations, seasons, titles — Chapter 11checks whether you understand where to place a capital letter in these situations and many others.

Punctuation: Lots of people shudder when they think about punctuation, but most of the rules are logical. In Chapter 12, you practice inserting and deleting commas. Chapter 13hits you with questions about apostrophes and quotation marks.

Parallel structure: Parallel is the word English teachers use to describe balance. In Chapter 14, you work on questions about parallelism, including lists, paired conjunctions ( either/or, not only/but also, and so forth), tense, and person.

Style: Do your sentences need to go on a diet? Chapter 15permits you to trim some repetitive or wordy sentences. Chapter 16prods you to vary sentence patterns.

Electronic media: Do you know how to make a grammatically correct presentation slide or bulleted list? Chapter 18questions you on this topic and tests the appropriate form and language for email and texts. In Chapter 19, you examine formal and informal English and decide when each is appropriate.

Word traps: Some word pairs can trick you — accept/except, affect/effect, rise/raise, and so on. In Chapters 20, 21, and 22, you practice choosing the appropriate word so that your writing always expresses your intended meaning.

Life is filled with unanswered questions (How can we achieve world peace? Where's the path to enlightenment? Do I need a ticket to get there?). Fortunately, this book is filled with answered questions. Check Part 2for the correct answers, each accompanied by an explanation of the grammar or style point involved.

This book gives you plenty of grammar questions to work on. Perhaps you want to track your progress as you tackle the questions, or maybe you’re having trouble with certain types of questions and wish they were all presented in one place. You’re in luck.

In addition to what you’re reading right now, this book comes with a free, access-anywhere Cheat Sheet that includes tips and other goodies you may want to have at your fingertips. To get this Cheat Sheet, simply go to www.dummies.com and type Grammar 1001 Dummies Cheat Sheetinto the Search box.

The online practice that comes free with this book offers you the same 1,001 questions and answers that are available here, presented in a multiple-choice format. The beauty of the online problems is that you can customize your online practice to focus on the topic areas that give you trouble. If you’re short on time and want to maximize your study, you can specify the quantity of problems you want to practice, pick your topics, and go. You can practice a few hundred problems in one sitting or just a couple dozen, and you can focus on a few types of problems or a mix of several types. Regardless of the combination you create, the online program keeps track of the questions you get right and wrong so you can monitor your progress and spend time studying exactly what you need.

To gain access to the online practice, you simply have to register. Just follow these steps:

1 Register your book or ebook at Dummies.com to get your PIN. Go to www.dummies.com/go/getaccess

2 Select your product from the dropdown list on that page.

3 Follow the prompts to validate your product, and then check your email for a confirmation message that includes your PIN and instructions for logging in.

If you don’t receive this email within two hours, please check your spam folder before contacting us through our Technical Support website at http://support.wiley.com or by phone at 877-762-2974.

Now you’re ready to go! You can come back to the practice material as often as you want — simply log in with the username and password you created during your initial login. No need to enter the access code a second time.

Your registration is good for one year from the day you activate your PIN.

The online practice that comes free with this book offers you the same 1,001 questions and answers that are available here, presented in a multiple-choice format. Multiple-choice questions force you to zoom in on the details that can make or break your correct solution to the problem. Sometimes one of the possible wrong answers will catch you in the act of making a certain error. But that’s great, because after you identify a particular error (often a common error that many others make as well), you’ll know not to fall into that trap again.

You can access this online tool by using a PIN code, as described in the next section. Keep in mind that you can create only one login with your PIN. Once the PIN is used, it’s no longer valid and is nontransferable. So you can’t share your PIN with others after you’ve established your login credentials. In other words, the problems are yours and only yours!

To gain access to the online practice, all you have to do is register. Just follow these simple steps:

1 Register your book or ebook at Dummies.com to get your PIN. Go to www.dummies.com/go/getaccess .

2 Select your product from the dropdown list on that page.

3 Follow the prompts to validate your product, and then check your email for a confirmation message that includes your PIN and instructions for logging in.

If you do not receive this email within two hours, please check your spam folder before contacting us through our Technical Support website at http://support.wiley.com or by phone at 877-762-2974.

Now you’re ready to go! You can come back to the practice material as often as you want — simply log on with the username and password you created during your initial login. There is no need to enter the access code a second time.

Your registration is good for one year from the day you activate your PIN.

Each chapter begins with short explanations of the tips and traps associated with each topic, and the answer explanations give you still more information about grammar rules. If you need longer explanations and more examples, you may want to check out English Grammar For Dummies, English Grammar Workbook For Dummies, or Grammar Essentials For Dummies, all of which I wrote and Wiley published. My royalty statement and I thank you!

Part 1

IN THIS PART …

You may have a love-hate relationship with answering questions; you enjoy challenging yourself, but you don’t like to fail. This part — 1,001 grammar questions — is set up so you won’t fail. When you have trouble, you can check the answer and read the explanation in Part 2and then return to the questions, better prepared to answer the next one correctly. Specifically, here’s what you’ll find in this part:

Basic parts of speech and essential elements of a proper sentence ( Chapters 1– 7)

Descriptive elements and mechanics of capitalization and punctuation ( Chapters 8– 13)

Ways to add style to your writing ( Chapters 14– 17)

Considerations when writing for electronic media and varying levels of formality ( Chapters 18– 19)

Commonly misused words and expressions ( Chapters 20– 22)