Some Observations on Chapter 1, Quiz 1 Sentences It is important to remember when you are writing sentences to provide a context for the word, meaning that only that word or its synonym would fill the slot; to use the word in the sense that it was used in the essay; and to keep the part of speech the same. Although you may certainly change the tense of a verb to fit the sentence and make nouns either singular or plural, verbs must remain verbs; nouns, nouns; adjectives, adjectives; and adverbs, adverbs. It is important as well to observe the principles of Standard Edited American English in punctuation, spelling, and word usage. The "What's Wrong this Picture" and "What's Right with this Picture" sentences come from student responses to Quiz 1. I have at times made editorial comments. What's Wrong with this Picture? Relegate 1. "Obama should regulate a new set of laws for his last year as president." "Regulate" and "relegate" do not mean the same and should not be confused. However, in the case of the sample sentence above, neither word is appropriate. 2. "The victims body was relegated to a different wing of the hospital." 3. "The man relegated the work to his intern for processing." Who is "the man?" a boss? a co-worker? And again the all-important context, the clue that helps the reader understand the meaning of "relegate." In this instance perhaps "delegated" is a better word. 4. "I was relegated at work from being a cashier to being a store manager." This sentence represents the wrong direction: one is relegated from a higher position to a lower one, not the other way round. In most business situations a cashier's position is lower than a store manager's. What's Right with this Picture? 1. "The police chief was relegated to the position of prison guard." The word "relegate" has the connotative value of being in a higher position and then being demoted to a lower one, and this sentence shows that relationship. 2. "The corporal was relegated to doing the job of a private." See the sample explanation above. 3. "After failing to live up to his potential in the major leagues, the young baseball player was relegated back to the minor leagues." Although "relegated back" is redundant, surely the meaning of the word is clear. 4. People in positions of authority, unable to perform up to company expectations, should be relegated to entry level positions or dismissed. See sample explanations #1 and #2. What's Wrong with this Picture? Conspicuous 1. "The sign was placed in a very conspicuous spot." No context. Nothing in the sentence indicates what the word "conspicuous" means. Could be "inconspicuous" or "dangerous" or "inappropriate" or almost any adjective. An alternative might read: "The sign was placed in a conspicuous spot so that anyone who entered the room knew that smoking was not allowed." 2. "The girl sitting down looks very conspicuous wearing that dress." No context for the word; almost any other adjective would serve: pretty, demure, lonely, sexy, suspicious, and so on. An alternative: the girl sitting down on the bus stop bench looks very conspicuous in part because she seems too young to be on her own and in part because no bus is due by in the next three hours. 3. "The young lady is very conspicuous." No context: many adjectives could fill the "conspicuous" slot: gorgeous, extraordinarily ugly, well known, wealthy, wretchedly poor, and so on. 4. "It was very conspicuous to the teacher that the children were cheating on the test." Do not confuse "conspicuous" with "obvious." In what way were the cheating students "conspicuous?" Were they constantly looking at the bottom of their shoes? glancing at the palms of their hands? peering at the work of a student who sat next to them? Their conspicuous behavior (whatever it was) made it obvious to the teacher that the students were cheating. 5. "Do not expect to go unnoticed when conspicuously dressed in a chicken costume." Good sentence, but "conspicuous" is an adjective, not an adverb. Alterntaive: She was conspicuous dressed in her chicken costume when everyone else wore either an elegant gown or a tuxedo. What's Right with this Picture The woman in the red suit was so conspicuous that we noticed her from across the room. The very large sign on the highway was very conspicuous. Motorists could see it from miles away. The attractive woman, because of her unusual beauty, was very conspicuous in comparison to the other average-looking females. After the girl's shopping cart hit another car, she left as quickly as possible. The owner of the other car recognized the conspicuous dent and scratch as soon as he returned to his car. Can you see how each of these sentences provides a context for the word (can we not discern from the context, even if we had never heard of the word before, what "conspicuous" means?), uses Standard Edited American English, and uses the word as it was used in the essay? Obviously sometimes it takes another sentence or a subordinate clause to illustrate the meaning of the word. Etymologies For the most part, the etymologies worked just fine. But please remember that they must be complete, written in complete sentences (no symbols or abbreviations), and that all words that need to be capitlized are indeed done so. The formulaic beginning of all etymologies is "The word ____ came into our language from____ . . . ., the idea being that one could pull out the etymology from the context of the assessment and know what word was being explained. Roots and Meanings (Word Elements in your text) The drill here is that I give you a keyword. then you identify the root and the meaning of the root. Remember that you are working with the words in a given chapter. One hundred point assessments get a little tricky here because they cover more than one chapter, but if the assessment is a quiz on a single chapter, use the word elements in that chapter. For 100-point assessments I will let you know what chapter (or chapters) the question covers if there is ambiguity. The biggest problem in Chapter One was the keyword "chromosome." Yes, "chro/chrom" is indeed a root word and it does indeed mean "color," but the root asked for in Chapter 1 with the keyword "chromosome" was "soma/somat" meaning "body." Use your text. Multiple Choice For the most part, the MC portion of the assessment went really well. My primary recommendation is that you not leave a single one blank; take a guess. You just might be right. Matching Always remember that we are using the words as they were used in the essay, and that proviso was a problem with two words: obscure and prying. Of course, "obscure" means "deficient in light," one of the choices, but if you look at page 11 of your text, you will find the following sentence (superscript 19 marks the word): "The local or dialectal label does not necessarily condemn a word as incorrect, it means merely that the word may be misunderstood or obscure in a locality where it is not widely used." In this context the best match is "ambiguous, vague." The other problem word was "prying." We had a rather long discussion about the connotative difference between "prying and curious/inquisitive." And surely one of the senses of "prying" is "forcing open with a lever." But if you look at page 6 of your text and the discussion of synonyms, you will find that the essay is using "prying" as a synonym for "curious" or "inquisitive." My hope is that the foregoing observations are helpful and that they will guide you to making As in the ensuing assessments. Ms Fiero |