PRAXIS Core Academic Skills: Writing Usage and Mechanics 3 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Which sentence correctly uses "who" versus "whom"?
- Whom is calling at this hour?
- Who did you give the book to?
- To whom did you give the book? (Correct answer)
- Whom wants dessert?
Correct answer: To whom did you give the book?
"Whom" is the object of the preposition "to."
Question 2: Identify the sentence free of a dangling modifier.
- Walking to school, the rain soaked my jacket.
- Walking to school, I got my jacket soaked by the rain. (Correct answer)
- Walking to school, my jacket got soaked.
- The rain, walking to school, soaked my jacket.
Correct answer: Walking to school, I got my jacket soaked by the rain.
The modifier "walking to school" correctly describes "I."
Question 3: Which sentence correctly uses a colon?
- She bought: apples, oranges, and pears.
- She bought the following: apples, oranges, and pears. (Correct answer)
- She bought the following apples: oranges, and pears.
- She: bought apples, oranges, and pears.
Correct answer: She bought the following: apples, oranges, and pears.
A colon follows a complete clause to introduce a list.
Question 4: Choose the correct word: "The effect of the new policy was ___ on morale."
- affect
- an affect
- positive (Correct answer)
- effected
Correct answer: positive
"Positive" is an adjective correctly modifying the noun "effect."
Question 5: Which sentence corrects the comma splice?
- It was raining, we stayed inside.
- It was raining, so we stayed inside. (Correct answer)
- It was raining we stayed, inside.
- It, was raining we stayed inside.
Correct answer: It was raining, so we stayed inside.
Adding the coordinating conjunction "so" fixes the comma splice.
Question 6: Identify the correctly capitalized sentence.
- We visited the grand canyon last Summer.
- We visited the Grand Canyon last summer. (Correct answer)
- We Visited the Grand Canyon last summer.
- we visited the Grand Canyon last Summer.
Correct answer: We visited the Grand Canyon last summer.
Proper nouns are capitalized; seasons are not.
Question 7: Which sentence uses parallel structure correctly?
- She likes hiking, swimming, and to bike.
- She likes to hike, swimming, and biking.
- She likes hiking, swimming, and biking. (Correct answer)
- She likes hike, swim, and biking.
Correct answer: She likes hiking, swimming, and biking.
All three items use the same -ing gerund form for parallelism.
PRAXIS Core Academic Skills: Writing Usage and Mechanics 3
Which sentence correctly uses "who" versus "whom"?