ITBS Capitalization and Punctuation 3 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Which sentence correctly punctuates a quotation?
- She said, 'I love reading'.
- She said, "I love reading." (Correct answer)
- She said "I love reading."
- She said, I love reading.
Correct answer: She said, "I love reading."
A direct quotation requires a comma after the dialogue tag and the period inside the closing quotation marks.
Question 2: Which sentence has correct capitalization for the months of the year?
- My birthday is in august.
- My birthday is in August. (Correct answer)
- my birthday is in August.
- My Birthday is in august.
Correct answer: My birthday is in August.
Months of the year are proper nouns and must always be capitalized.
Question 3: Which sentence correctly uses an exclamation point?
- Watch! out for that car.
- Watch out for that car! (Correct answer)
- Watch out for! that car.
- Watch out for that! car.
Correct answer: Watch out for that car!
An exclamation point is placed at the end of an exclamatory sentence to show strong feeling.
Question 4: Which word in the sentence needs a capital letter? 'last summer, we visited the grand canyon.'
- summer
- visited
- Grand (Correct answer)
- last
Correct answer: Grand
'Grand Canyon' is a proper noun (specific geographic location) and both words must be capitalized.
Question 5: Which sentence uses a hyphen correctly?
- She is a well known-author.
- She is a well-known author. (Correct answer)
- She is a well known author.
- She is a wellknown author.
Correct answer: She is a well-known author.
A hyphen joins compound modifiers that come before the noun they describe, such as 'well-known author'.
Question 6: In which sentence is the period used incorrectly?
- He finished his homework.
- Dr. Smith gave a lecture.
- Did you see the game?
- She called me at 5.00 PM. (Correct answer)
Correct answer: She called me at 5.00 PM.
A colon, not a period, is used to separate hours from minutes when writing time (5:00 PM).
Question 7: Which sentence correctly capitalizes a specific school subject?
- I enjoy history class.
- I enjoy History class.
- I am taking Spanish this year. (Correct answer)
- I am taking spanish this year.
Correct answer: I am taking Spanish this year.
Names of languages (Spanish) are proper nouns and always capitalized, unlike general subjects like 'history'.
ITBS Capitalization and Punctuation 3
Which sentence correctly punctuates a quotation?