The Guardian's grammar test

10 out of 14 for me. A lot of those phrases I hadn't heard of before so it was more a common sense guess for a few rather than knowing them.

No idea how abstract and collective nouns are distinguished so 2 wrong there.

Never heard of the active voice so 1 wrong there.

I got the prepositional phrase wrong which was something I should have known but didn't.

Looking back on my English language education now there was absolutely no grammar teaching beyond capital letters, full stops, apostrophes, vowels/consonants and nouns/verbs/adverbs/adjectives.

I remember learning German for GCSE and we were doing something about the past participle. Absolutely nobody in my class (top set I hasten to add) had ever heard of it before.

Things such as subordinate clauses, when to use semicolons, colons and more have all been things I've since googled to find out for myself.

It was only perhaps 3 years ago I learnt the rule that 'an' is used to precede a word starting with a vowel, whereas 'a' precedes a word starting with a consonant (except for H now, oddly). That was never a mistake I made because I knew very clearly what sounded right and wrong, but it amazes me that it was a rule I'd never been taught.

I'm actually very conscious that my grammar is poorer than I would like.
 
Grammar was always one of my strengths, so this was an easy 14 out of 14 for me. Ironically, however, this strength in English primarily stems from six years of studying Latin...
 
TriggerHappy said:
It was only perhaps 3 years ago I learnt the rule that 'an' is used to precede a word starting with a vowel, whereas 'a' precedes a word starting with a consonant (except for H now, oddly). That was never a mistake I made because I knew very clearly what sounded right and wrong, but it amazes me that it was a rule I'd never been taught.

I'm actually very conscious that my grammar is poorer than I would like.
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Not in Scouseland ........ they say 'a apple'...makes me smile all the time.

Well done on the test and I agree about learning more since the advent of Google!

Were we just very lazy in English classes?
 
skysh4rk said:
Grammar was always one of my strengths, so this was an easy 14 out of 14 for me. Ironically, however, this strength in English primarily stems from six years of studying Latin...
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It helps when you have heard the phrases in the questions before though, why didn't we get this sort of thing drilled into my comprehensive education?
 
tiler65 said:
It helps when you have heard the phrases in the questions before though, why didn't we get this sort of thing drilled into my comprehensive education?
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Yeah, I'm not really sure why these things aren't covered in English classes, as a few of these are quite important. The active/passive distinction in particular can really impact writing and conversation.
 
tiler65 said:
Not in Scouseland ........ they say 'a apple'...makes me smile all the time.

Well done on the test and I agree about learning more since the advent of Google!

Were we just very lazy in English classes?
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Are they talking about fruit or phones?
 
13/14

This test is quite typical of The Guardian. Slightly slanted towards relatively educated middle class people who won't actually fully understand what they're reading, but astute enough that they can deduce at least 80% of the answers using common sense, and thus remain comfortable in the knowledge that they're smart enough to read The Guardian.

The endless loop of delusion continues.
 
10/14, which is higher than I expected. Ironically it was Spanish studies that helped me. Learning another language certainly makes you learn more about your own.
 
9/14 for me, only studied English to GCSE level so only learnt the basics of grammar, (educated) guessed my way through pretty much the whole quiz :LOL:

Here's one for you...... If a quiz is quizzical what is a test? ;)
 
London Headshots said:
13/14

This test is quite typical of The Guardian. Slightly slanted towards relatively educated middle class people who won't actually fully understand what they're reading, but astute enough that they can deduce at least 80% of the answers using common sense, and thus remain comfortable in the knowledge that they're smart enough to read The Guardian.

The endless loop of delusion continues.
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I scored under 80% and don't read the guardian.... maybe I should...:shrug:

However, I know my 3 R's... just never have understood what gerunds, past participles etc etc.. actually mean... (in that i use them correctly without knowing the exact definition of each!)
 
Lynton said:
However, I know my 3 R's... just never have understood what gerunds, past participles etc etc.. actually mean... (in that i use them correctly without knowing the exact definition of each!)
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I'm the same with Spanish. Each past tense has its own name of course, but I have no idea which name refers to which tense!
 
10 :(

Guess I'm not clever enough to read the guardian :crying:

Back to the daily sport for me then :D
 
Ricardodaforce said:
I'm the same with Spanish. Each past tense has its own name of course, but I have no idea which name refers to which tense!
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and there's loads of the buggers!!

I am sure there is some kind of past tense... pluperfect geronimo.... which means, I once did this in the past against my will... :shrug::shrug::LOL::LOL::LOL:
 
9/14

Can't say I'd ever been taught anything about active and passive sentences or whether nouns are abstract or collective - most of them I could take a decent stab at though.
 
There is a certain irony that The Grauniad should be promoting spelling, grammar and punctuation :)
 
12.
 
I wonder what a text speak grammar test would be like? Maybe some of the younger folk would fair better?
 
11. I forgot about the lions and had no idea about the preposition stuff. We weren't taught much real grammar at school apart from nouns, verbs and a few things about clauses. I learnt more grammar doing French and Spanish.
 
I got 9, so only six wrong. Is there a maths test? I'm sure i'll ace that.
 
tiler65 said:
I wonder what a text speak grammar test would be like? Maybe some of the younger folk would fair better?
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I suspect I would fail that one dismally.
It drives people crazy that I use actual words for text messages :LOL:
 
viv1969 said:
I suspect I would fail that one dismally.
It drives people crazy that I use actual words for text messages :LOL:
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Me too.

I suppose we have to evolve at some point and undoubtedly some text speak will break into the norm for English, let that be a while though please!
 
12/14, no idea about prepositional clauses or active voice, indeed never heard of active voice - I should have been able to guess the prepositional clause one though now I think about it.

Teaching of grammar at my (grammar!) school was limited to basics, I learned more English grammar as a consequence of studying foreign languages. For example, when I started Italian 18 months ago our teacher introduced reflexive verbs in the first lesson, as one of the first things to learn is how to introduce yourself and chiamarsi (to be called) is a reflexive verb. None of us apart from the person that had studied Latin at school knew what a reflexive verb was.
 
tiler65 said:
Me too.

I suppose we have to evolve at some point and undoubtedly some text speak will break into the norm for English, let that be a while though please!
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There's one example that gets used a lot already and makes me cringe every time I see it, and that's "defo" or "deffo".
 
12/14....'gerund'?!? WTF?:shrug: Still, if I'd actually bothered going to school, I might have known it:whistle:
 
onomatopoeia said:
12/14, no idea about prepositional clauses or active voice, indeed never heard of active voice - I should have been able to guess the prepositional clause one though now I think about it.

Teaching of grammar at my (grammar!) school was limited to basics, I learned more English grammar as a consequence of studying foreign languages. For example, when I started Italian 18 months ago our teacher introduced reflexive verbs in the first lesson, as one of the first things to learn is how to introduce yourself and chiamarsi (to be called) is a reflexive verb. None of us apart from the person that had studied Latin at school knew what a reflexive verb was.
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I have heard of a grass verb, the one outside my house.
 
London Headshots said:
13/14

This test is quite typical of The Guardian. Slightly slanted towards relatively educated middle class people who won't actually fully understand what they're reading, but astute enough that they can deduce at least 80% of the answers using common sense, and thus remain comfortable in the knowledge that they're smart enough to read The Guardian.

The endless loop of delusion continues.
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John, I suppose you don't like the Guardian :D
 
13/14.
Which is totally weird as I was just guessing for most of them. I think of myself as being fairly literate, but I have no idea what most that test was about.

I don't remember doing any grammar at school but that was in the bad old days of Secondary Modern schools before comprehensives were brought in.
 
7 out of 14.
bit rubbish really, result of a 80's Thatcher education mess-up!!!
I hated english at school :thinking: and most answers where guesses.
 
tiler65 said:
I wonder what a text speak grammar test would be like? Maybe some of the younger folk would fair better?
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Er ... "fare"!

It's only fair to correct you in your own grammar thread! :p
 
12/14, very happy with that.

I got the last two wrong, never heard of a gerund!
 
12/14 - I only knew 2 answers, the rest I guessed as I haven't a clue what the hell it means.
 
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