Common Mistake Worksheet Answer Key

Use this worksheet to test your English ability, or click here to see my

Common Mistake Worksheet Answer Key

(Note: many of these links may be broken--sorry for the mess!)

Once you find and fix the mistakes on the "Test Your Skill" worksheet, read the following (and check your score below!). All the problems have been fixed. (Of course, sometimes there is more than one way to fix a problem, so if you wrote something different you may also be correct. Many students "correct" things that are not wrong, but their "corrections" are not wrong either!) If you have questions, ask a teacher!

Common Mistake Worksheet Answer Key                     

Many of the underlined words are explained at the bottom of this page. If everything is working right (and unfortunately, this is not always the case!), you can click on them to go to the bottom, or to explanations on my Better Writing Study Guide.

I wanna say something about my mother. I think she has been a blessing to me in

many ways. For example, she has been a good teacher, coach, friend, and so on. She taught

fourth grade students before she retired, but I also knew a lot from she at home. Sometimes

she taught me stories while I helped her with housework. She helped me when I had much

homeworks, too. When my work was done I can watch TV to study some useful things. I

enjoy studying because her influence. Besides, I like to play ping-pong. My mother is

good player of ping-pong, so twice a week she told me how to play. Over time I knew how

to play well, for as my grandpa say, “a duck’s son is a good swimmer”. In fact, three month

later I will going to Australia on my university ping-pong team! Finally, I would like to

say something about how she is my friend. A picture beside my bed shows the two of us.

In the picture we are embracing. We took the photo in the chinese holiday of Spring

Festival. On New Year’s Eve, my mother and I has a special tradition—we write each oth

-er the letter saying what our friendship has meant during the past year. Whenever I get

lonely I read these letters and the memories of our friendship over the years brings me

much comforts. My mother is more wonderful. So I love her. I wish I can be as her someday.

CORRECTED:

How did you do? Count the number of mistakes you found and correctly corrected!

Notes about the underlined things above:

Some of these sentences are a little contrived (like the paragraph structure as a whole), but they are grammatically acceptable. I had to do this so I could make all the errors! If you have questions, ask a teacher!

This is correct:  ...many ways; for example, she has...         The way it is written above is also correct. See my note on "for example." 

Be careful with pronouns. If she taught me, then I learned from her. See my note on agreement.

A comma before the "and" at the end of a series/list is usually left out, but never "wrong." It is considered optional if there is little chance for the reader to misunderstand.

Americans say "fourth grade" while British people (and Chinese) usually say "grade four." I do not think either would normally be capitalized since we do not capitalize the names of school subjects other than proper nouns such as languages (e.g., chemistry, physics and English).

Homework is not countable.

Some students change the tenses to reflect a continuing influence from the writer's mother. While this is not necessarily wrong, it is certainly not required to make the sentences correct. How do you know the influence continues? I believe the author's intent is to show the influence of his/her mother, looking back to before the author moved away to go to college.

The past tense of "learn" in America is "learned" while the British use "learnt."

Prepositions and holidays can be tricky. If a holiday (or vacation) lasts more than one day, Americans talk about doing things "during" the holiday or holidays (with the holiday's name put in between "the" and "holiday"). If you are talking about a one-day holiday you say you did it "on" the day. This is especially tricky when holidays like "Christmas" and "Chinese New Year" can refer to EITHER a day or a longer period of time! Authors avoid confusion by adding helping words; for example, "We shopped a lot during Christmas, but opened the gifts on Christmas Day." (Also see my note on holidays and articles.)

"Bring" must agree with "memories," not with "years" (which is part of a prepositional phrase). "Memories bring," and "memory brings" are both OK.

The word "comfort" is rarely used as a countable noun, but if this is the author's intention it should read "many comforts." Similarly, in a formal (but rare) usage, the author could write, "brings me much comfort." Usually, however, "much" is used in negative sentences and questions when the noun is non-countable.

My students often correct the final sentence by saying, "I wish I could be like her someday." Technically this is acceptable, but it implies that this will never happen. Perhaps this reflects a Chinese mindset or mode of expression, but more likely it is a misunderstanding on the difference between wish and hope (see my Better English Study Guide). I think most young Americans would see "becoming like a cherished mother" as something that is possible (someday), and thus would use "I hope I can" instead of "I wish I could." (See "wish/hope")

This resource was created for our students under my understanding of "fair use" for educational resources.  

© 2007 Michael Krigline, all rights reserved. As far as I am concerned, people are allowed to print/copy it for personal or classroom use.

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