Revising and Editing
1. A common error in academic writing is the tendency to
A. write overly formal sentences that use big words for the sake of sounding "academic."
B. incorporate regional or ethnic dialects for the sake of authenticity.
C. rely too heavily on second-person pronouns.
D. rely too heavily on first-person pronouns.
2. A _______ can be used for both organizing and revising an essay.
A. graphic organizer
B. topic sentence
C. verbal sketch
D. flowchart
3. Which of the following sentences demonstrates a subject-verb-modifier pattern?
A. After spending hours preparing the meal, Shelly served dinner.
B. Shelly served dinner after spending hours preparing the meal.
C. Shelly, after spending hours preparing the meal, served dinner.
D. Because she'd spent hours preparing the meal, Shelly, a stickler for following recipes, finally served dinner.
4. Which of the following is a simple sentence?
A. Karen and David arrived at the airport at 3:35 P.M. and took a taxi to their hotel.
B. I got to the airport late because the traffic was so terrible.
C. I went to the airport, but I was too late to meet them.
D. When I realized I was too late, I called David's cell phone and made arrangements to meet them in town.
5. Choose the sentence that correctly uses parallelism.
A. In her English Composition class, Emma learned to read essays critically and she appreciated academic writing.
B. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.
C. Phillip and his friends found the concert offensive, and they also thought it was embarrassing.
D. It was both a very long lecture and very boring.
6. Which of the following sentences uses a metaphor?
A. Whenever she's hungry, my cat howls like a banshee.
B. My boss is a tornado.
C. Rafael looked as startled as a deer in headlights.
D. My old car gulps gasoline.
7. Which of the following sentences contains one or more strong, active verbs?
A. It was believed by some that Conrad's father had been a war hero.
B. Conrad trembled with anxiety and anticipation as he pressed Denise's doorbell.
C. Having been away in London for two years, Conrad was happy to see Denise.
D. The phone directory was hastily searched by Conrad.
8. Which of the following compound sentences uses a coordinating conjunction to explain how ideas are related in terms of contrast or opposition?
A. Cosima didn't want to stop at the store on her way home from work, but she knew she needed cat food.
B. Texting while driving is a major cause of accidents, so even if you receive a text, it's safer not to respond.
C. Artie switched to a Windows phone, and all his friends were shocked.
D. We'll either go to our parents' house for dinner this weekend or make an excuse to cancel.
9. Balancing a sentence through using words or phrases that have the same grammatical structure is known as
subject-verb agreement.
parallelism.
correlation.
compound sentencing.
10. Paragraphs that use _______ diction tend to use first and second person pronouns and shorter, less varied sentences.
A. popular
B. colloquial
C. informal
D. compound
11. When revising an essay, it's a good idea to write down a sentence stating what your essay is about. If you can't summarize it in one sentence, your essay
A. lacks evidence to support your thesis.
B. isn't directed toward its intended audience. C. lacks essential background information.
D. probably lacks a clear purpose.
12. Mindful of the importance of varying sentence length in a paragraph or essay, Spiro sometimes chooses to use _______ sentences to demonstrate relationships between equally important ideas.
A. compound
B. complex
C. simple-compound
D. compound-complex
13. Which of the following is a compound sentence?
A. Because Viceroy Butterflies migrate over very great distances, tracking them is a challenge to entomologists.
B. Butterflies and hummingbirds feed on the nectar of flowering plants.
C. Because fraud is so common in some corporations, regulatory agencies are overworked.
D. Corporate fraud is becoming more common in the United States, and the civil courts are being stretched to their limits.
14. How many independent clauses are included in a simple sentence?
A. Three
B. One
C. None
D. Two
15. The feelings and attitudes evoked by a word are referred to as its A. connotation.
B. figuration.
C. denotation.
D. evocation.
16. Which type of learners would benefit by checking whether their thesis and topic sentences are clearly stated when revising their essays?
A. Pragmatic
B. Verbal
C. Abstract
D. Concrete
17. Eliminating unnecessary adverbs such as very, really, or extremely can help make a sentence more
A. concise.
B. figurative.
C. simple.
D. compound.
18. Which of the following sentences shows correct usage of a comma or commas?
A. Christopher Wren, a contemporary of Isaac Newton and John Locke, was the architect of St. Paul's Cathedral.
B. William of Orange, arrived in England in 1688, to claim the English throne from James II.
C. Claire's plum pudding was mainly distinctive, for its absence of plums.
D. After a fire at their home, Carlie and her mother rented a house in Glendale Arizona from November 14, 2007 to January 28, 2008.
19. Which of the following is an evaluation tool using questions and answers that lead to effective essay revision strategies?
A. Thesis
B. Flowchart
C. Outline
D. Graphic organizer
20. A judicial decision handed down in court uses the _______ level of diction.
A. informal
B. colloquial
C. formal
D. popular