Accuplacer College Placement Sentence Skills 3 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Identify the error: "Each of the students have submitted their essay."
- Verb agreement (Correct answer)
- Pronoun case
- Verb tense
- No error
Correct answer: Verb agreement
"Each" is singular, so it requires "has" rather than "have."
Question 2: Which word correctly completes the sentence: "The committee made ___ decision quickly."
- their
- they're
- its (Correct answer)
- it's
Correct answer: its
"Committee" is a singular collective noun, so the possessive "its" is correct.
Question 3: Choose the best revision: "He ran quickly to the store, he forgot his wallet."
- He ran quickly to the store he forgot his wallet.
- He ran quickly to the store, but he forgot his wallet. (Correct answer)
- He ran quickly to the store, and forgetting his wallet.
- He ran quickly to the store he, forgot his wallet.
Correct answer: He ran quickly to the store, but he forgot his wallet.
Adding "but" after the comma fixes the comma splice and shows contrast.
Question 4: Which sentence uses the apostrophe correctly?
- The dogs bowl was empty.
- The dog's bowl was empty. (Correct answer)
- The dogs' was empty bowl.
- The dog's bowl's was empty.
Correct answer: The dog's bowl was empty.
"Dog's" shows singular possession of the bowl.
Question 5: Select the correct verb tense: "By next year, she ___ here for a decade."
- will work
- works
- will have worked (Correct answer)
- worked
Correct answer: will have worked
The future perfect "will have worked" describes an action completed by a future point.
Question 6: Which is the clearest rewrite of: "The book that was written by the author who won the prize sold well."
- The book sold well, written by the prize-winning author.
- The prize-winning author's book sold well. (Correct answer)
- The book, written by who won the prize, sold well.
- The book sold well that the author wrote who won.
Correct answer: The prize-winning author's book sold well.
Condensing the clauses into a possessive phrase makes the sentence clear and concise.
Question 7: Choose the correctly punctuated sentence:
- My favorite subjects are: math, science, and art.
- My favorite subjects are math, science, and art. (Correct answer)
- My favorite subjects are; math, science, and art.
- My favorite subjects, are math science and art.
Correct answer: My favorite subjects are math, science, and art.
No colon is needed when the list directly follows the verb "are."
Accuplacer College Placement Sentence Skills 3
Identify the error: "Each of the students have submitted their essay."