HSPT Language Skills 3 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Which sentence has a subject-verb agreement error?
- The team practices every afternoon.
- The list of supplies are on the desk. (Correct answer)
- Each student brings a notebook.
- My friends enjoy the new game.
Correct answer: The list of supplies are on the desk.
The subject is "list," which is singular, so the verb should be "is," not "are."
Question 2: Which sentence correctly uses a semicolon?
- The storm passed; the sky cleared quickly. (Correct answer)
- The storm passed; and the sky cleared.
- The storm passed; quickly.
- The storm; passed and cleared.
Correct answer: The storm passed; the sky cleared quickly.
A semicolon correctly joins two related independent clauses without a conjunction.
Question 3: Which word is the correct homophone for: "They left ____ books on the bus."?
- there
- their (Correct answer)
- they're
- thier
Correct answer: their
"Their" is the possessive form showing the books belong to them.
Question 4: Which sentence avoids a misplaced modifier?
- Covered in chocolate, I ate the cake.
- I ate the cake covered in chocolate. (Correct answer)
- Covered in chocolate, the fork lifted the cake.
- I ate covered in chocolate the cake.
Correct answer: I ate the cake covered in chocolate.
The modifier "covered in chocolate" sits next to "cake," the noun it describes.
Question 5: Which sentence is a run-on?
- The bell rang, and we left class.
- The bell rang we left class. (Correct answer)
- When the bell rang, we left class.
- The bell rang; we left class.
Correct answer: The bell rang we left class.
Two independent clauses are joined with no punctuation or conjunction, making it a run-on.
Question 6: Choose the correctly spelled word.
- definately
- definitely (Correct answer)
- definatly
- definitley
Correct answer: definitely
"Definitely" is spelled with "finite" in the middle.
Question 7: Which sentence uses the correct verb tense?
- Yesterday she walks to school early.
- Yesterday she walked to school early. (Correct answer)
- Yesterday she will walk to school early.
- Yesterday she walking to school early.
Correct answer: Yesterday she walked to school early.
"Yesterday" signals past time, so the past tense "walked" is correct.
HSPT Language Skills 3
Which sentence has a subject-verb agreement error?