Dr. Johanna Rubba
English Department (Linguistics)
Cal Poly State University San Luis Obispo
Last updated  6/8/06

ENGL 390: THE LINGUISTIC STRUCTURE OF MODERN ENGLISH

DIAGNOSTIC EXERCISES

NOTE: These exercises are copyrighted to Prentice Hall, Inc. and are taken from the Annotated Teacher's Edition of Writing and Grammar, Gold Level. They are intended for the educational use of students enrolled in ENGL 390 exclusively. Any other use is in violation of copyright law. Permission must be secured from Prentice Hall for any use of this document.

ENGL 390 students:

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Use the various native-speaker tests, such as the parts-of-speech, tag-question, to-for test (for indirect objects) and meaning tests (for roles such as direct object). There are forms here that were not reviewed in class, such as "visible or mental" verbs and the various types of pronouns (reflexive, etc.). You'll probably see a difference in your ability to detect these vs. the things we did study, such as transitive vs. intransitive verbs and finding the subject of a sentence. Consult the book as needed to remind yourself of the native-speaker tests, but remember that you won't be given a list of these or examples of them in action on the final. To detect nominative vs. objective case, transform the sentence as follows:

D-16 From ____ did you get that product?

From him, her, them.

"Him, her, them" tells you that the correct choice is "whom". These are the objective forms of the pronouns. You would not say "from she"; "she", etc. are the subjective (nominative) forms. This won't be tested, but it's a handy clue.

The answer key is below all the exercises. Use the self-correct procedure: if you make an error, don't erase it; write the correct form somewhere else.

I'll collect these at the exam tomorrow to see the results. I will keep them with your exams to pick up in the fall. If you don't plan to pick up your material, make a photocopy for yourself.