Praxis 5038 A+ Graded End Term Exam: ETS-Style Questions
for Certification Succes
misplaced modifier - ✔✔a word, phrase, or clause that is improperly separated from the word it
modifies / describes. Because of the separation, sentences with this error often sound awkward,
ridiculous, or confusing.
subject-verb agreement - ✔✔the subject and verb must agree in number. This means both need to be
singular or both need to be plural.
predicate - ✔✔the part of a sentence or clause containing a verb and stating something about the
subject (e.g., went home in John went home ).
Charles Dickens - ✔✔Great Expectations, A Tale of Two Cities, No Thoroughfare, The Frozen Deep, The
Goblins, A Christmas Carol; English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known
fictional characters and is regarded as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era
complex sentence - ✔✔a sentence containing a subordinate clause or clauses
subordinate clause - ✔✔a clause, typically introduced by a conjunction, that forms part of and is
dependent on a main clause (e.g., "when it rang" in "she answered the phone when it rang").
conjunction - ✔✔a word used to connect clauses or sentences or to coordinate words in the same
clause (For-And-Nor-But-Or-Yet-So).
compound-complex sentence - ✔✔a sentence having two or more coordinate independent clauses and
one or more dependent clauses.
modernist - ✔✔a style of art, architecture, literature, etc., that uses ideas and methods which are very
different from those used in the past; a self-conscious break with the past and a search for new forms of
expression
,absurdist - ✔✔of, relating to, or characterized by the absurd or by absurdism; philosophy based on the
belief that the universe is irrational and meaningless and that the search for order brings the individual
into conflict with the universe
figurative language - ✔✔words or expressions with a meaning that is different from the literal
interpretation. When a writer uses literal language, he or she is simply stating the facts as they are.
parallelism - ✔✔the fact of being similar in development or form; repeated syntactical similarities
introduced for rhetorical effect
prepositions - ✔✔a word or group of words that is used with a noun, pronoun, or noun phrase to show
direction, location, or time, or to introduce an object
metrics - ✔✔a part of prosody that deals with metrical structure (see prosody)
realistic - ✔✔a style of art or literature that shows or describes people and things as they are in real life
dialects - ✔✔a form of a language that is spoken in a particular area and that uses some of its own
words, grammar, and pronunciations
semantics - ✔✔the study of the meanings of words and phrases in language; the meanings of words and
phrases in a particular context
orthography - ✔✔spelling
affixes - ✔✔a letter or group of letters added to the beginning or end of a word to change its meaning :
a prefix or suffix
cognates - ✔✔having the same origin; related by descent from the same ancestral language
, etymological development - ✔✔the study of the history of words, their origins, and how their form and
meaning have changed over time. By extension, the term "the etymology (of a word)" means the origin
of the particular word.
dangling participle - ✔✔a participle intended to modify a noun that is not actually present in the text.
Adjectives ending in -ing (and sometimes -ed) are called participles
Old English - ✔✔the language of the Anglo-Saxons (up to about 1150), a highly inflected language with a
largely Germanic vocabulary, very different from modern English.
Middle English - ✔✔the English language from circa 1150 to circa 1470
Elizabethan English - ✔✔Between Middle English and Modern English (Shakespeare, King James Version
of the Bible)
Early Modern English - ✔✔the stage of the English language used from the beginning of the Tudor
period until the English Interregnum and Restoration, or from the transition from Middle English in the
late 15th century to the transition to Modern English
Beowulf - ✔✔this epic and its shorter elegiac contemporaries, "The Wanderer" and "The Seafarer,"
were all originally written in Old English- a Germanic language that gave us some of our most basic,
everyday words (e.g., "father," "give," and "day").
modifier - ✔✔a word (such as an adjective or adverb) or phrase that describes another word or group of
words; a word or phrase that makes specific the meaning of another word or phrase
run-on sentence - ✔✔
Pronoun shift - ✔✔occurs when a writer begins by using a particular type of pronoun and then shifts
abruptly to using a different type of pronoun. For example, a writer begins by discussing "a person who
drives an older car," then shifts to talking about "your car."
for Certification Succes
misplaced modifier - ✔✔a word, phrase, or clause that is improperly separated from the word it
modifies / describes. Because of the separation, sentences with this error often sound awkward,
ridiculous, or confusing.
subject-verb agreement - ✔✔the subject and verb must agree in number. This means both need to be
singular or both need to be plural.
predicate - ✔✔the part of a sentence or clause containing a verb and stating something about the
subject (e.g., went home in John went home ).
Charles Dickens - ✔✔Great Expectations, A Tale of Two Cities, No Thoroughfare, The Frozen Deep, The
Goblins, A Christmas Carol; English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known
fictional characters and is regarded as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era
complex sentence - ✔✔a sentence containing a subordinate clause or clauses
subordinate clause - ✔✔a clause, typically introduced by a conjunction, that forms part of and is
dependent on a main clause (e.g., "when it rang" in "she answered the phone when it rang").
conjunction - ✔✔a word used to connect clauses or sentences or to coordinate words in the same
clause (For-And-Nor-But-Or-Yet-So).
compound-complex sentence - ✔✔a sentence having two or more coordinate independent clauses and
one or more dependent clauses.
modernist - ✔✔a style of art, architecture, literature, etc., that uses ideas and methods which are very
different from those used in the past; a self-conscious break with the past and a search for new forms of
expression
,absurdist - ✔✔of, relating to, or characterized by the absurd or by absurdism; philosophy based on the
belief that the universe is irrational and meaningless and that the search for order brings the individual
into conflict with the universe
figurative language - ✔✔words or expressions with a meaning that is different from the literal
interpretation. When a writer uses literal language, he or she is simply stating the facts as they are.
parallelism - ✔✔the fact of being similar in development or form; repeated syntactical similarities
introduced for rhetorical effect
prepositions - ✔✔a word or group of words that is used with a noun, pronoun, or noun phrase to show
direction, location, or time, or to introduce an object
metrics - ✔✔a part of prosody that deals with metrical structure (see prosody)
realistic - ✔✔a style of art or literature that shows or describes people and things as they are in real life
dialects - ✔✔a form of a language that is spoken in a particular area and that uses some of its own
words, grammar, and pronunciations
semantics - ✔✔the study of the meanings of words and phrases in language; the meanings of words and
phrases in a particular context
orthography - ✔✔spelling
affixes - ✔✔a letter or group of letters added to the beginning or end of a word to change its meaning :
a prefix or suffix
cognates - ✔✔having the same origin; related by descent from the same ancestral language
, etymological development - ✔✔the study of the history of words, their origins, and how their form and
meaning have changed over time. By extension, the term "the etymology (of a word)" means the origin
of the particular word.
dangling participle - ✔✔a participle intended to modify a noun that is not actually present in the text.
Adjectives ending in -ing (and sometimes -ed) are called participles
Old English - ✔✔the language of the Anglo-Saxons (up to about 1150), a highly inflected language with a
largely Germanic vocabulary, very different from modern English.
Middle English - ✔✔the English language from circa 1150 to circa 1470
Elizabethan English - ✔✔Between Middle English and Modern English (Shakespeare, King James Version
of the Bible)
Early Modern English - ✔✔the stage of the English language used from the beginning of the Tudor
period until the English Interregnum and Restoration, or from the transition from Middle English in the
late 15th century to the transition to Modern English
Beowulf - ✔✔this epic and its shorter elegiac contemporaries, "The Wanderer" and "The Seafarer,"
were all originally written in Old English- a Germanic language that gave us some of our most basic,
everyday words (e.g., "father," "give," and "day").
modifier - ✔✔a word (such as an adjective or adverb) or phrase that describes another word or group of
words; a word or phrase that makes specific the meaning of another word or phrase
run-on sentence - ✔✔
Pronoun shift - ✔✔occurs when a writer begins by using a particular type of pronoun and then shifts
abruptly to using a different type of pronoun. For example, a writer begins by discussing "a person who
drives an older car," then shifts to talking about "your car."
