tiggerwoman

Thank you. Actually, from all the answer-sheet-answers you recognise as wrong, I don't worry about your test! You practice so much, you have to be successful (just look at your signature if you don't believe me!)

Your're absolutely right. It has to be "remains puzzling", or "remains a puzzle". Where on earth (or else) do you always get those wrong answer sheets from??? (Not angry with you, but with whoever writes them and keeps confusing you and probably hundreds of other students who don't have the internet to use a forum) :shy:

tiggerwoman You are quite right when you say all of needs something after it, but it does not have to be 'the'. For example: "All of my friends are here". Michael Hi Michael! Yes, you're right if that's meant in general. But in the example I used it has to be a "the"/"these", doesn't it? By the way, it's Edinburgh I'm going to. I've been warned not to go to Aberdeen by an Aberdonian (I didn't even know they were called that!), but you're right, she was one of those Scots I had no trouble understanding when she was talking fast :)

Hi Xizzhu! I'm happy to say that usually in normal English you wouldn't encounter such a sentence, but you might in some professional literature. It happened to me this week... I was at a job interview and the professor, being native English speaking, asked me if I'd understood the project description properly. I said yes, but that there was a sentence I didn't get. He looked at it to explain it to me, then sighed and said whoever wrote that, even he doesn't understand it properly, but he could tell me what it was supposed to mean... Unfortunately, that won't help you if you find a structure like this in the test, so let me explain it! A desire to throw over reality a light that never was might give way abruptly to the desire on the part of what we might consider a novelist-scientist to record exactly and concretely the structure and texture of a flower. A desire to throw over reality a light that never was This part means that, initially, the "novelist-scientist" (whatever that's supposed to be!!) wants people to look at something like a flower in a completely new light. Like, if people used to look at a flower and said "it's pretty", he tries to find out if you can eat the roots, and the flower may be useful. might give way abruptly to the desire [...] to record exactly and concretely the structure and texture of a flower. This part says that, after his initial plan, the "novelist-scientist" suddenly decides that he should instead describe the flower in all detail, drawing pictures, taking photographs, looking at it through the microscope and drawing pictures of that again, and writing a few pages about it. on the part of what we might consider a novelist-scientist This part only means that it's the novelist-scientist who has all these weird ideas. So... if I wrote that paragraph in a more sensible way, it would be: Scientists often start examination of a new subject like a flower with the desire to cast a light over reality (=to look at it from a point of view) that has not been known before. Sometimes, this desire can abruptly give way to the desire to record exactly and concretely the features of the subject/flower he examines, which include structure and texture. Such a scientist can be considered a "novelist-scientist".

:puhcl!!!!:p I'm not happy when you make mistakes, but I can only be helpful to you when you do! :D Which, then, makes me happy of course :) To answer your question from another topic, I've already taken the test and passed with a 297; I just thought I might help people here a bit because the forum helped me a lot, too. And, guess what, I was offered a PhD position in Scotland on Monday, so I'll be moving there soon and test my ESL skills ;) [bounce]

You can either use: "All ballet dancers learn..." There, you use "all" to describe the group of dancers, so you need a verb in plural, "learn". Or you could say: "Every ballet dancer learns..." Here, you use "every" to describe one person in the group as an example of all the people in the group, so you need the singular "learns". So, the two mean the same, but need different grammatical structures. If you use no article, you can only do it if you don't specify: you can say "stars are bright", "all stars are bright", or "every star is bright". But you'd say: "The stars in the milky way are bright" "All (the) stars in the milky way are bright" "Every star in the milky way is bright".

Hi uhcl! I've just put in things I'd say differently in red :p One thing though: The question says you should honour a famous person in your country, so I'm not sure you can pick Bill Gates! All in all, I think you've done a good job! Even though I've put in lots of corrections, most of them are minor ones :D And the spelling and punctuation is very good! You have to be careful with your prepositions (you sometimes use two where one would be enough), and the conditional: you often say "will" instead of "would", which means that it's really about to happen, and not (as the question says) that it would happen if you could decide. The rest I've corrected are mostly style things... you're on your way to a good score I'd say :D

Sorry, I'm not Erin, but I still think/hope I can help you there! You can't say "All of people here" are my friends. The correct form would be: "All of the people here" are my friends. "All of" needs a "the", and something "the" relates to. Your other example is correct. However, if you use "All of the" or "All the" people/guests/ballet dancers, you must specify: If you only say "people", for example, you can't use "the". If you say "people I have invited", or "ballet dancers in my aunt's ballet school", THEN it is correct to use "All the", or "All of the". So, in uhcl's sentence, C is correct.

It's the same in your example. You have to say: Some students love English, others don't. You can't shorten "other students" to "other" without an "s". You can only use "other" if you say something like: One of the two friends likes English, the other doesn't. Otherwise :p, you have to use the long version "other students".

Hi uhcl! "of comparing" is correct; if you want examples: There are many ways of comparing the economy... There are many ways of finding a job through the internet. There is only one good way of answering this question. In my opinion, tino's right: you have to change "those" to "that", or "another" to "others", but NOT to "other". That would be wrong: if you used "other", you'd have to say "other countries" to have a complete sentence. In the 1st sentence, I'd keep "going travelling" but replace "have lain". That sounds horrible to me. "lain" is the perfect tense of the verb "lie", and you need "lay" --> "laid".

Hi Erin! If you can see a red light on the horizon in the far east-north-east from America, it's a blushing tigger in Germany :p Thanks a lot for the compliment! What I meant was that I felt like Lotje... a bit self-conscious about the essays, mostly since it's been a few years since I had to write essays at school. I like writing a lot, but I don't like it when people see it, when I'm not convinced it's as good as it could be, and writing something you're really satisfied with within 30 mins isn't easy. So when I finally managed to post essays and they received relatively little criticism I was a bit surprised, and quite happy. I was very grateful for Tanya's corrections of the organisation, since I'm a little chaotic usually (my prof has just told me last week that I'm a great writer but not too organised :o). I guess you're right, there were not many grammar or spelling mistakes to be corrected, but that doesn't mean I don't find these corrections helpful. I guess I would generally have been happy about more feedback, but that probably applies to most people who post essay :)

I can understand that, it's how I felt, too, especially since this is the first forum I ever used. And I hate it when people read stuff I think isn't perfect... BUT (yes, there was going to be one!): - Even Score it now can only give you a number, but no suggestions for improvement, whereas some people here can. When I posted my first essay there was surprisingly little criticism (except for the structure :cool:) - If that helps you any, I'm sure that even if the essays aren't perfect, you'll be among the better writers on here simply because of your English skills Maybe write a few, and then pick the one you like most and post it :D

Actually, there was quite a long one... no idea what happened there! Ummm.... okay... I'll just try to say it again: I think if you feel safe with the essays you can use your own structure if this is in a logical order. If you don't, keeping to the standard ones may be a good idea. You say you don't think you're a very good writer... I don't like the standard-structure either, but it definitely helps you if you practice a few essays that way and get a feeling for how long it takes to write intro, conclusion and the paragraphs between... I decided to go for the standard thing with small modifications in the test to be sure (yep, that's cheap, but if I pay 130 $ to prove I can speak English... well... if everyone on here says the correctors like that structure I won't argue ;)). I don't think you have to worry about the test. If you don't misinterpret the topic, then with your English you'll get a good score even if you use your own structure. If you had big problems with English, I'd suggest using the standard one, but since you don't... well! I can understand anyone who doesn't like it:D Just make sure you read the entire list of topics and be prepared for the weirder ones... Being from Germany, I'm not entirely sure how to write a few 100 words about what is the most important animal or plant in my country, or what item I'd bring as a present to represent my country. I can imagine the same problems apply to Belgium (even though I'd like chocolate as a present :p, but I'm not sure that counts as an item...). As long as you know what you write and manage to put it an order that makes sense, you'll do fine. I haven't used score it now, but I can't imagine how it could work better than the people on here or in other forums... I'm not sure how it manages to judge the contents of the essay... the language would be easy... well! I wouldn't trust it ;)

C is the correct answer. You have the phrase: what it lacks in ..., it makes up in ... That means, it has negative aspects, but the positive ones are strong enough to "make up for" the negative ones. you have "what it lacks" on the one hand, so on the other hand you have the things that make the wolverine an effective predator. you have to use the same tense in both cases, so: it lacks, and it makes up.

In my opinion, it should be: Daylight saving time came into use in the US... Yes, uhcl, you're right, it is an event that has happened in the past, so we have to keep using came. By the way, recent research has shown that nowadays from the electricity point of view, it doesn't really make a difference, so using present tense and useful together would be wrong ;) to come into use means as much as to be introduced.

About Bill Clinton, it would be correct to say he entered his last year in office I think. If you want to say that you're in the last year of your time as a student, I would choose saying: uhcl is a student in his final, or last, year, even though final would be nicer I think. I am the last year student would be wrong, grammatically. Also, people might think that you went to your school "last year" if you put it like that.

Hi! If they explicitly say they want the advantages AND disadvantages, they do want to hear both sides. It may be a good idea, let's say if you have 3 paragraphs in the main section, that in the first you put 1 or 2 points supporting the idea you think is wrong. Then, in the 2nd and 3rd, you support your idea. That also gives you the chance to say in the final paragraph that in your opinion the reasons for your idea are more important or numerous than the reasons against it.

As far as I know, the three most-used ways for "if" are: 1.) Something that is a logical consequence: If it rains, the children will play inside the house. 2.) Something that is a consequence of what might happen: If I won a million Euros, I would buy a Jaguar. 3.) Something that would have been a consequence of a thing that did not happen: If I had won the lottery last week, I would have become rich. There are of course a few less used versions, but for a start that should help you.

Hi all! I don't really know what is wrong with the sentence, but I think you cannot use "is introduced". You might do that in a list of historic events, like: 1492: Columbus arrives in America. 1508: Manioc is introduced to Europe. But if you have only this one sentence on its own, you can't use present tense. In my opinion, the sentence is correct... there must be a wrong answer though... :shy:

Let me give you an example: Under the condition that you are in Ireland and believe in fairies, you can find a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. But: Under certain conditions you can find a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. If you define the condition(s), you have to use "the". If you don't, you have to leave it out. I also think that if you use "the condition", then you can only use the singular, even if you name 2 or more conditions. But I might be wrong about that one. Where you can definitely use the plural is when you describe the conditions without naming them: Under the conditions that followed the big fairy strike in 1956, no fairy was willing to hide gold at the end of a rainbow for almost a year. Excuse the silly examples, I need to go to bed I think [:o)]:D[|)]

Yes... for the sentence Erin used as an example, this is true. In Erin's sentence, the house hasn't been built yet, so it's not overlooking anything. But in our sentence, it is about RETURNING to HIS house, so the house HAS already been built, and it is overlooking the river. Sorry... I don't really understand what you mean here :shy:

Thank you very much for your compliment :o welllll... I'm sure you could use "as long as tall", since "as long as is tall" is 100% wrong, and you say "as long as it is tall" is wrong, too. I'm not sure about that... I'd use it in an essay, but maybe that's just my German coming through when it shouldn't... But if you want to be sure, say "as long as tall". The important thing is that you know that "as long as is tall" is wrong, and choose it as the wrong answer it in the test :D

I don't agree with xizzhu:

Okay... let's see how MANY questions I can answer :p It has to be set, mainly because of the meaning: During the summer solstice, there's 24-hour-daylight in the Arctic Circle, because the sun does not set. The sun doesn't "sit"... As in the example of the house, you can say it "sits" on the hill because it is on the hill, and touches the hill. But for the sun, that doesn't apply. "they" refers to the teeth, so teeth must be the subject. That leaves A and D. A is wrong because it's in the past tense. D is right, because it's in the present like the rest of the sentence. It should be: "much as they did one hundred years ago". It should be either "his home overlooking the Potomac River", or "his home which/that overlooked the Potomac River". I'd prefer the 1st one. B is correct. I can't really define what the structure's called, but you can say things like: There is an increase in what is known as alternative psychology. He is enthusiastic about what is usually thought to be boring. and other things like that. You can replace "what is" by "something that is", or something similar. So, the "what" doesn't need an extra "it" or other pronoun. A is correct. B would be wrong because of the meaning: If the population grows more than the available vegetation, it can't be called population control. C would (grammatically) need a "and" after "vegetation", or you'd have 2 complete sentences without a proper link. D would need a "that" after vegetation, and I doubt that the "will" would be the right tense than (but I'm not 100% sure about that) Hope it was helpful