| Terms | Definitions |
|---|---|
| What are the three common end marks? | The period (.), the exclamation point (!), and the question mark (?). |
| What is a comma splice? | A run-on sentence in which the two complete thoughts are separated by a comma.
Example: Dogs have large canine teeth, mice have large molars. |
| What is a subject? | A person or thing that is being discussed, described, or dealt with.
Example: Jennifer walked to the store. |
| What is a sentence fragment? | An incomplete sentence that is missing a subject, verb, and/or complete thought.
Sentence fragment: Under the bed. Complete sentence: The toy was under the bed. |
| Commas are used... (7) | -After introductory dependent clauses -After two or more introductory phrases -To separate three or more items in a list -To separate two or more words describing a word that follows -To separate two independent clauses joined by a coordinating conjunction -To set off transitional or parenthetical expressions -To set off modifying phrases |
| What is a fused sentence? | Two complete thoughts with no punctuation at all.
Example: Dogs have large canine teeth mice have large molars. |
| Name all three ways to fix a run-on sentence. | Separate with a period, separate with a semicolon, or subordinate one of the complete thoughts.
Example 1: Dogs have large canine teeth. Mice have large molars. Example 2: Dogs have large canine teeth; mice have large molars. Example 3: Dogs have large canine teeth, but mice have large molars. |
| What is a predicate? | Part of a sentence that tells what the subject is doing or being, usually consists of a verb and its objects. Example: Jennifer walked to the store. |
| What is a run-on sentence? | A sentence that contains two complete thoughts. Example: I went to the store I saw a man standing on the corner. |
| What is a misplaced modifier? | They modify the wrong word or seem to modify more than one word in a sentence.
Misplaced: The dealer sold the Cadillac to the buyer with leather seats. Clear: The dealer sold the Cadillac with leather seats to the buyer. |
| How do you fix a misplaced modifier? | Move the modifier as close as possible to the word it modifies.
Misplaced: The child ate a cold dish of cereal for breakfast this morning. Clear: The child ate a dish of cold cereal for breakfast this morning. |
| What is a dangling modifier? | They seem to modify no word at all. Dangling: Following their trail closely, the lions were located. Clear: Following their trail closely, the safari leader located the lions. |
| How do you fix a dangling modifier? | You must supply a word that the dangling phrase can logically modify.
Dangling: Having arrived late for practice, a written excuse was needed. Clear: Having arrived late for practice, the team captain needed a written excuse. |
| What is parallel structure? | It means that the various components of a sentence are parallel or are in the same form. Not parallel: The hostess prepared for her party by cooking, cleaning, and to decorate. Parallel: The hostess prepared for her party by cooking, cleaning, and decorating. |
| What is a predicate nominative? | A noun that follows a linking verb and renames the subject
Example 1: Landon is my brother. Example 2: She was a monster. |
| What is an adjective clause? | A word group that describes another word in a sentence and has its own subject and verb. Example 1: I do not like people who are mean to animals. Example 2: Can you see the bird that is on the fence? |
| What is a collective noun? | A noun that names a group Example: flock, orchestra, committee, bunch |
| How is simple future tense formed? | It is formed by inserting the word will before the verb.
Example: I will take a ride to town. |
| How is simple past tense formed? | It is formed by adding ed, or d, if the verb ends in e. If a verb ends in y, changed the y to i and add ed. Example: I walked home through the woods. |
| What do the continuous tenses show? | They show action continuing in the past, present, or future. Past: They were taking a bath together. Present: She is cooking in the kitchen. Future: I will be meeting Tom this Saturday. |
| How is present perfect tense formed? | It is formed by using has or have with the past participle of a verb. Example: We have washed the car. |
| How is the past perfect tense formed? | It is formed by using had with the past participle of a verb. Example: They had ended their relationship. |
| How is future perfect tense formed? | It is formed by using will have with the past participle of a verb. Example: By December, I will have lived here six months. |
| What is a pronoun? | A word that takes the place of a noun, a group of words acting as a noun, or another pronoun. Example: You, I, They, He |
| How are reflexive and intensive pronouns formed? | They are formed by adding -self or -selves to certain personal pronouns.
Example: Themselves, Himself, myself, yourself |
| What is an antecedent? | A word, phrase, clause, or sentence to which another word refers. Example: Linda went to Mexico during her school holiday. |
| What is an argument? | An ordered presentation of support for a position that you want others to accept. |
| What does bias mean? | A tendency to lean toward one side over another. |
| What are rhetorical techniques? | Verbal techniques used to capture an audience's attention. Examples: Alliteration, Simile, metaphor, hyperbole |
| What is author's purpose? | It is what the author hopes to accomplish by writing a text. |
| What is point of view? | The perspective from which a story is told. Examples: First person, second person, third person |
| What is author's viewpoint? | What the author thinks about the topic that he or she is presenting. |
| What is character motivation? | The reasons for his or her actions in the story. |
| What is a character? | The individuals that the story is about. Examples: Harry Potter, Tom Sawyer |
| What is a setting? | Where the action is taking place in a story. Examples: The beach, a city, my house |
| What is a plot? | What happens in a story. The plot is made up of various events that build a story line. |
| What are the elements that make up fiction? (5) | -Theme -Plot or events of a story -Characters -Setting -Narrator and character viewpoint |
| What is the theme of a story? | The central idea behind its events and characters. The "moral" of the story. |
| What is connotative meaning? | What the word suggests (connotes). Example: Home; cozy, loving, comfortable |
| What is denotative meaning? | The exact dictionary definition of a word. Example: Home: Where a person lives at any given time. |
| What are context clues? | Hints to the meaning of a word or expression. |
| Transitional Words and Expressions...(5) | -They can show cause and effect -They can show contrast or comparison -They can show order or time -They can provide an example or emphasis -They can add to an idea |
| What is an active verb? | A verb that shows an action performed by the subject of the sentence Example: Anthony is throwing the football. |
| What is an adjective? | A part of speech that helps describe a noun or pronoun Example: charming, huge, gentle, tasty |
| What is an adverb? | A word that modifies a verb, an adjective, or another adverb by giving it more meaning Example: quietly, slowly, above, yesterday, enormously, frequently |
| What is an agreement? | Parts of a sentence that are alike in gender, number, and person |
| What is an antonym? | Two words that express opposing concepts. (Opposite) Example: Good & Bad, Fall & Rise, Loud & Quiet |
| What is an apposition? | A grammatical relation between a word and a noun phrase that follows. Example: My pig, Wilbur |
| What is an auxiliary verb? | A verb that combines with another verb to help form tense. (Helping verb) Example: am, is, were, does, have |
| What is a clause? | An expression including a subject and predicate but not constituting a complete sentence. Example: Lazy students whine. "Students=subject / whine=predicate" |
| What is an independent clause? | A clause in a complex sentence that can stand alone as a complete sentence. Example:Jane ate pasta because she was hungry. |
| What is a dependent clause? | A clause in a complex sentence that cannot stand alone. Example: Jane ate pasta because she was hungry. |
| What is a comparison? | Change of form in adjective and adverbs to show in amount quantity such a good, better, best. |
| What is a superlative? | It refers to the greater degree in the quality or quantity of one item or person with respect to two or more others, largest of the three Example: tallest, most honest, craziest, best |
| What is a complex sentence? | A sentence with one independent clause and at least one dependent clause Example: Because my coffee was too cold, I heated it in the microwave. |
| What is a compound-complex sentence? | A sentence with two or more independent clauses and one or more dependent clauses Example: Kate doesn’t like cartoons because they are loud, so she doesn’t watch them. |
| What is a compound predicate? | Two or more predicates usually joined by “and” or “or” Example: The puppy howled and cried all night. She patted her horse and brushed its mane. |
| What is a compound sentence? | A sentence with two or more independent clauses Example: I really need to go to work, but I am too sick to drive. She did not cheat on the test, for it was the wrong thing to do. |
| What is a compound subject? | Two or more subjects joined together usually by “and” or “or” that share a common verb Example: Guitars and violins are stringed instruments. My dog and his friend came to visit us at school. |
| What is a conjunction? | A part of speech that connects words, phrases, or clauses Example: and, as, because, but, for, or, neither, nor, so, whether, yet |
| What is a consonant? | A letter of the alphabet that is not a vowel. Example: T, S, L, N, R |
| What is a dash? | A punctuation mark that shows a pause or break in a sentence. (—) |
| What is a direct object? | The object that receives the direct action of the verb Example: Our cat caught a mouse. The boss saw her in town. |
| What is a direct quotation? | Use of the exact words of the speaker. |
| What is gender? | A classification of nouns and pronouns into three groups: masculine, feminine, and neuter. Example: boy, girl, child, aunt, uncle, actor, actress |
| What is a homonym? | Words that are alike in pronunciation but differ in meaning and spelling Example: To, two, too; new, knew; mousse, moose |
| What is a hyphen? | A mark used to form a compound adjective, to join certain prefixes to words, or to separate words into syllables (-) |
| What is an idiom? | A group of words that, taken together, differ in meaning from the individual words used separately. Example: better late than never; bite the bullet |
| What is an indirect object? | The object that is the recipient or beneficiary of the action of the verb. Example: Simon gave his uncle a dirty look. Paula passed the money to her mother. |
| What is an indirect quotation? | A paraphrased or reworded summary of someone's words |
| What is an Infinitive? | A form of a verb that generally appears with the word “to” and acts as a noun, adjective, or adverb Example: Everyone wanted to go. I will lock the door to prevent theft. |
| What is an interjection? | An independent word that expresses strong feeling. Example: Congrats! Bless you! Crikey! |
| What is a demonstrative pronoun? | A pronoun that is used to point to something specific within a sentence. Example: this, these, those, that |
| What is a personal pronoun? | A pronoun that is associated primarily with a particular person. Example: It, you, what, I, they, he, we |
| What is a relative pronoun? | A pronoun that introduces an adjectival subordinate clause and relates it to the word it modifies. Example: which, that, whose, whoever, whomever, who, whom |
| What is an indefinite pronoun? | A pronoun that refers to a non-specific person, place, thing, activity, or idea. Example: anyone, whichever, nobody, something, other, somebody |
| What is a possessive pronoun? | A pronoun that shows ownership Example: mine, yours, ours, theirs, his |
| What is a reflexive pronoun? | A type of pronoun that is preceded by the adverb, adjective, pronoun, or noun to which it refers. Example: myself, yourself, himself, herself, itself, yourselves, themselves. |
| What is an interrogative pronoun? | A pronoun which is used to make asking a question easy. Example: Who, which, what, whose, whom |
| What is a reciprocal pronoun? | A pronoun which is used to indicate that two or more people are carrying out or have carried out an action of some type, with both receiving the benefits or consequences of that action simultaneously. Example: each other, one another |
| What is an intensive pronoun? | A pronoun that ends in -self or -selves and places emphasis on its antecedent by referring back to another noun or pronoun used earlier in the sentence. Example: We made this pie ourselves. I will do it myself. |
| What is an intransitive verb? | An action verb that does not have a direct object Example: The plane will take off in ten minutes. |
| What is number? | Change in the form of a noun, adjective, or verb to show if the word is singular or plural. |
| What is an object of a preposition? | The pronoun or noun that follows a preposition. Example: The book is on the table. The cat was hiding under the chair. |
| What is parallelism? | The use of a series of words, phrases, or sentences that have similar grammatical form. Not parallel: We wanted to cook and to go swimming. Parallel: We wanted to cook and to swim. |
| What is a participle? | A verb that helps describe when the action took place Example: a sleeping baby, a frightened child, a used car |
| What is part of speech? | One of the traditional categories of words intended to reflect their functions in a grammatical context. |
| What is passive? | The voice used to indicate that the grammatical subject of the verb is the recipient (not the source) of the action denoted by the verb. |
| What is a phrase? | An expression whose meanings cannot be inferred from the meanings of the words that make it up. Example: very tall, only occasionally |
| What is plural? | A grammatical number category referring to two or more items or units. Example: women, buses, cherries, deer |
| What is a prefix? | A syllable or word that comes before a root word to change its meaning Example: anti-, pre-, dis-, non- |
| What is a preposition? | A function word that combines with a noun or pronoun or noun phrase to form a prepositional phrase that can have an adverbial or adjectival relation to some other word. Example: above, across, before, behind, down, from, into, of, on, to, under |
| What is a root? | A basic part of a word without prefixes or suffixes that gives the main meaning of the word Example: biology, hydrogen, aquarium |
| What is a sentence? | A group of words containing a subject and a predicate and expressing an indecently complete thought. Example: The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog. |
| What is a declarative sentence? | A sentence that makes a statement Example: I love my dog. My new car is blue |
| What is an interrogative sentence? | A sentence that asks a question. Example: Where do you live? What kind of music do you like? |
| What is an imperative sentence? | A sentence that gives a command Example: Don’t touch me! Be there at five. |
| What is singular? | A form of noun, pronoun, adjective, or verb that refers to one person, place, or thing in a sentence. Example: woman, child, dog, cherry, bus |
| What is a suffix? | Addition to the end of the word that adds or changes its meaning Example: -age, -ious, -logy, -tion, -ful |
| What is a syllable? | The smallest group of sounds, consisting of a vowel and one or more consonants that are pronounced as a unit. Example: nap/kin, ro/bot |
| What is a synonym? | Words that are similar in meaning Example: little, tiny; fantastic, splendid |
| What are vowels? | Letters representing the sounds a, e, i, o, u, and sometimes y |
| What is an ode? | A long, lyrical poem, usually serious or meditative in nature. Example: Oh! Glorious spring, how amazing you are You are both Truth’s beauty and light You travel far a Yet always remain bright |
| What is an onomatopoeia? | The use of words that imitate sounds. Example: Boom, crash, bang, pop |
| What is a paradox? | A statement or proposition that seems self-contradictory or absurd but in reality expresses a possible truth. Example: Nobody goes to that bar, it is too busy. I have to be cruel in order to be kind. |
| What is personification? | The act of attributing human characteristics to abstract ideas. Example: The car danced across the icy road. The stars in the clear night sky winked at me. |
| What is a poem? | - a composition written in metrical feet forming rhythmical lines Example: Leg so hot, Hot hot leg, Leg so hot, You fry an egg. |
| What is a refrain? | A regularly repeated line or group of lines in a poem or song. Example: The song Twinkle, Twinkle, little star |
| What is repetition? | Repeated use of sounds, words, or ideas for effect and emphasis Example: It’s okay not to be okay. There are some things that are so unforgivable that they make other things easily forgivable. |
| What is a rhyme? | In poetry, agreement in the final sounds of two or more words at the ends of lines Example: Roses are red, Violets are blue I’m out of my head With thinking of you |
| What is rhythm? | In poetry and certain kinds of prose, patterns of stress or accent in the units that make up the verse or sentence. Example: There was an old woman who lived in a shoe |
| What is sarcasm? | Figure of speech that is harsh in tone and expresses meaning by use of the opposite. Example: I hope your life is as awesome as you preteen it is online. |
| What is a simile? | A figure of speech that expresses resemblance between things of different kinds, usually formed with “like” or “as” Example: He crept into the room as quiet as a mouse. The cloud was fluffy like cotton candy. |
| What is a sonnet? | A verse form consisting of 14 lines with a fixed rhyme scheme Example: basically Shakespeare |
| What is a stanza? | A fixed number of lines of verse forming a unit of a poem Example: One crow, Melting snow— Spring’s winning! |
| What is a verse? | A single line of poetry. Example: Roses are red |
| What is an accent? | A diacritical mark used to indicate stress or placed above a vowel to indicate a special pronunciation Example: á, ō, ë |
| What is an alliteration? | Use of the same consonant at the beginning of each stressed syllable in a line of verse Example: I have heard how hedgehogs hog the hedge. |
| What is an allusion? | An offhand reference to a famous figure or event in literature or history Example: Don’t act like a Scrooge! Chocolate is my Achilles’ Heel! |
| What is an autobiography? | A biography written by the subject themself. |
| What is a ballad? | A type of poem that is meant to be sung and is both lyric and narrative in nature Example: I can't help falling in love with you; Faithfully; Bridge over troubled water |
| What is a biography? | An account of the series of events making up a person's life |
| What is climax? | The highest point of anything conceived of as growing or developing or unfolding |
| What is dialogue? | A literary composition in the form of a conversation between two or more people Example: "Hello" "Hi, How are you?" |
| What is an essay? | An analytic or interpretive literary composition |
| What is a figure of speech? | An expression that strives for literary effect rather than conveying a literal meaning Example: personification, hyperbole, metaphor, simile, idiom |
| What is irony? | incongruity between what might be expected and what actually occurs Example: Nothing is carved in stone. |
| What is a limerick? | a humorous verse of three long and two short lines rhyming a-a-b-b-a Example: There was an old man with a beard. Who said "it is just as i feared! Two owls and a hen, Four larks and a wren, Have all built their nests in my beard!" |
| What is a lyric? | The text of a popular song or musical-comedy number Example: Shall i compare thee to a summer’s day? |
| What is a metaphor? | A comparison of two unlike things without using like or as. Example: He’s a walking encyclopedia. Franklin has a heart of gold! |
| What is a narrative? | A message that tells the particulars of an act or occurrence of course of events |
| What is a hyperbole? | Using an extreme exaggeration to make a point Example: He is as big as an elephant. My legs felt like jelly. |
| What is an antagonist? | The character who is in conflict with the protagonist |
| What is a protagonist? | the main character of the story, the character who "pushes towards something" |
| What is juxtaposition of opposites? | A way to show how things are different from one another Example: Male and female, large and small, happy and sad |
| What are qualifying statements? | They show that a statement may or may not be true as stated. |
| What is imagery? | Using figurative language to create visual representation for the reader Example: The trees rustled as the wind whistled gently through the leaves. |
| What is a singular noun? | A word that refers to just one person or thing Example: boat, cat, river, bus |
| How do you make a singular noun possessive? | Add an apostrophe and an s Example: boat’s, river’s, cat’s, bus’s |
| What is a plural noun? | A word that names more than one person or thing. Example: tables, cherries, dogs, babies |
| How do you make a plural noun that ends in s possessive? | Add an apostrophe only Example: tables’, cherries’, dogs’, babies’ |
| How do you make a plural noun that does not end in s possessive? |
Add an apostrophe and s Example: children’s, men’s |
| How do you show joint possession? | Use an apostrophe with the last noun only. Example: Johnson & Johnson’s laboratory, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s musicals |
| How do you show separate possession? | Use an apostrophe with all nouns. Example: Beethoven’s and Mozart’s music, Keat’s and Shelley’s poetry |
| How do you show possession on a compound noun? | Use an apostrophe on the last element Example: her sister-in-law's birthday, the court of law's rule |
| When do you use apostrophes? | -to show possession Example: dog's, bus's, cherries' -with contractions Example: don't, wouldn't, they've -to form plurals of letters, numbers, and symbols Example: Two A's, six 5's, many &'s |
| What is main idea? | What the passage says |
| What is primary purpose? | Why the author wrote the passage |
