How to use an apostrophe

How to use an apostrophe

by | Jun 6, 2011 | ACT English/SAT Writing, The New SAT

This post was inspired by Robin Koerner’s little rant in the Huffington Post about his encounter with a job applicant who had a 3.9 GPA but no idea of how to use an apostrophe correctly.

While you can, in real life, break some of the grammatical rules the SAT and ACT test without anyone really noticing, you cannot break this one. Sure, your high school or even your college teachers may overlook it, but if you screw this up on your resume or even in an email to a potential employer or college interviewer, it may very well be noticed and count very seriously against you. In many cases, it can lead to a flat-out rejection. Employers actually don’t care about your critical-thinking skills unless you can express yourself in basic, coherent English. If you don’t believe me, check out this article from the Washington Post. (more…)

Comma + and/but = Period = Semicolon

Comma + and/but = Period = Semicolon

by | Mar 27, 2011 | ACT English/SAT Writing, Blog, The New SAT

This is one of the most important shortcuts you can know for the ACT® English Test and the SAT® Writing Test, and it can save you a huge amount of time. You can expect to encounter several punctuation questions testing it in one form or another on any given exam.

Comma + and/but = Period = Semicolon

These three constructions are grammatically identical, so if more than one of them appear in answer choices, you can automatically eliminate all of those options. (more…)