EAP - English For Academic Purposes Grammar for Formal Writing Questions and Answers

Question 1

A student is editing a formal research paper and finds the following sentence: "The researchers' analysis didn't yield conclusive results, so they couldn't confirm their initial hypothesis." Which of the following revisions BEST adheres to the conventions of formal academic grammar?

Accepted Answer

The researchers' analysis did not yield conclusive results; therefore, they could not confirm their initial hypothesis.

Answer

Formal academic writing requires spelling out contractions. The correct answer replaces "didn't" with "did not" and "couldn't" with "could not" while maintaining a grammatically correct sentence structure with a semicolon and a conjunctive adverb.

Question 2

Which of the following sentences demonstrates the most effective use of nominalization for a formal academic context?

Accepted Answer

The government's regulation of the industry was a necessary action.

Answer

Nominalization involves changing a verb or adjective into a noun to create a more abstract and formal tone. In the correct answer, the verbs "regulate" and "act" are changed into the nouns "regulation" and "action," which is a common feature of sophisticated academic writing.

Question 3

In which section of a scientific paper would the use of the passive voice be most appropriate and conventional?

Accepted Answer

Methods, to describe the experimental procedure.

Answer

The passive voice is often used in the Methods section of scientific papers to emphasize the experiment or procedure itself, rather than the researchers who performed it (e.g., "The samples were heated" instead of "We heated the samples"). This creates an objective and impersonal tone appropriate for describing methodology.

Question 4

Which sentence correctly replaces the informal phrasal verb with a more formal, single-word equivalent suitable for academic writing?

Accepted Answer

The committee will investigate the allegations of academic misconduct.

Answer

In formal writing, it is often better to replace phrasal verbs with single-word verbs. "Investigate" is a more formal and appropriate alternative to the phrasal verb "look into." "Put off" should be "postpone," and "went up" should be "increased."

Question 5

A student wrote the following in a draft: "The university implemented a new wellness program. Because student mental health has become a major priority." How should this grammatical error be corrected for formal writing?

Accepted Answer

The university implemented a new wellness program, because student mental health has become a major priority.

Answer

The original text contains a sentence fragment. "Because student mental health has become a major priority" is a dependent clause and cannot stand alone as a sentence. The error is corrected by joining the dependent clause to the preceding independent clause with a comma.

EAP - English For Academic Purposes Practice Test

EAP - English For Academic Purposes Practice Test

EAP - English For Academic Purposes Grammar for Formal Writing Questions and Answers