TEAS English: conventions of standard English study guide

What this topic actually asks of you

Conventions of standard English is the first of the three English and Language Usage sub-content areas on the ATI TEAS, and ATI publishes its size: English and Language Usage carries 33 scored questions, 22% of the exam, and it is timed separately — 37 minutes. Conventions of Standard English is 12 of those scored questions, 8%. The other two sub-areas take usage and vocabulary; this one takes the mechanics of a single sentence.

Two things follow, and they shape how to study it.

• The sentence is the whole question. Every item here hands you one sentence, or one short sentence with a blank in it, and asks which form belongs there. There is no passage to read and no context to rebuild, and the deciding fact is printed inside the sentence you were given (the frozen spellings and the f-to-v plurals below are the exception) — the owner and its number, the head word of the subject, the job the pronoun is doing, the tense the words around it have set, the noun a describing phrase sits beside. Find that one fact and the item is decided; miss it and the item feels like taste.
• Most wrong options carry a named fault. A distractor in this topic is not noise. It is a spelling or a sentence that fails for one reason: a misspelling of the right word, a real word in the wrong job, or a sentence fault such as agreeing with the nearer noun instead of the subject, using a participle where a verb belongs, joining two complete sentences with a comma alone, or marking the wrong owner with an apostrophe. Those faults have names (Table B), and naming the one that caught you is what turns a miss into a method.

Our practice items are single-answer and text-only. The real ATI TEAS also uses other item types: ATI's own content outline lists multiple-choice, multiple-select, fill-in-the-blank numeric, hot spot and ordered-response items. Elk Ridge Academy's practice items are single-answer only, and they carry no pictures or diagrams — a set of candidate spellings is written as plain options, and nothing is drawn — so treat the rule, not any one format, as the thing you are drilling.

How a practice item is laid out. Shape-B items come in two forms, and both reward the same move. The first is a stem sentence with a blank, where each option is a word or a verb form to drop into that one place. The second is several versions of one sentence, where the versions differ only in a mark, an ending or a word and you must pick the one that is right. In both shapes, put every option into the sentence and read the whole sentence out before you choose. An option that sounds wrong on its own can be right in the sentence, and an option that sounds right alone is often the fault the item was built around.

ATI's objectives for this topic. ATI's Content Outline names what this sub-content area measures, and every practice item below maps to one of them: E.1.1 use conventions of standard English spelling · E.1.2 use conventions of standard English punctuation · E.1.3 use correct sentence structures. The three are not three separate skills. They are three passes over the same sentence, which is why the ten procedures below mix them and why the method at the end of this page is one method, not three.

The ten procedures

Every practice item in this topic is one of these ten. Each is worked out in full below — the rule in words, a worked example on its own sentence, and the trap it sets. (The ATI objective each one serves is in brackets.)

1. spelling commonly confused words — the word the sentence needs [E.1.1]. A blank that several sound-alike words could sit in and only one meaning fits: access against accept, except and excess. Grammar decides first — a noun slot takes a noun, not a verb — and meaning decides what is left.
2. spelling word endings and plurals — the ending [E.1.1]. Several spellings of one word, and one rule behind them: what the word ends in decides what the plural or the verb form adds — s, x, z, ch and sh take -es (a ch that sounds k keeps the s), a consonant plus y changes the y to i, a final f voices to v in some nouns (shelf, half), a silent e takes s alone, and a verb whose last syllable is stressed doubles its last consonant before -ing or -ed — unless that letter is w, x or y, which never double (fix → fixed, snow → snowed, play → played).
3. punctuation joins two complete sentences — the join [E.1.2]. Two word groups that could each stand alone as a sentence. A semicolon joins them, or a comma with a coordinating conjunction; a comma alone is a splice, and nothing at all is a run-on.
4. punctuation apostrophes — the owner [E.1.2]. The phrase names who owns something and how many of them there are. The apostrophe goes where the owner puts it, and the number is part of the decision, not an afterthought.
5. punctuation commas that set off — the words a comma sets off [E.1.2]. An opening clause, or an opening phrase of five or more words, or an aside that only adds detail. What a lone comma may not do is split a subject from its verb, or a verb from the words that complete it; a pair of commas around an aside may.
6. sentence completeness — a sentence from a piece of one [E.1.3]. Word groups that cannot stand alone — missing a subject, missing a verb that can carry a sentence, or both — a participle, an infinitive or a clause on its own.
7. subject verb agreement — the verb that matches the subject [E.1.3]. The head word of the subject decides the number, and the words sitting between the subject and the verb do not move it, whether they are a prepositional phrase, a phrase set off by commas, or a nearer noun of the other number.
8. pronoun case — the job the pronoun does [E.1.3]. Subject form, object form, possessive or reflexive: the job in the sentence picks the form. A preposition, a comparison that keeps its own verb, a compound subject or a compound object is what tells you which job it is, and a -self word that merely stresses the subject — The porters locked the doors themselves — is the same form doing a second job.
9. verb tense and form — the tense and the form [E.1.3]. Keep the tense the sentence has set, and use the form the helper calls for — a past participle after have, has or had, the base form after a modal, the past perfect for the earlier of two past actions.
10. modifier placement — the noun the describing phrase sits beside [E.1.3]. An opening describing phrase attaches to the noun right after the comma; a phrase inside a sentence belongs next to the word it describes. When a phrase describes a thing, the sentence must give it that thing to describe.

Reference tables: the rules to know cold

Table A — The ten procedures, and the question each one asks. The bold label is what the practice bank prints; the wording column is how the question reaches you on test day.

Table B — The named faults. Most wrong options in this bank carry one of these. Read the option into the sentence, name the fault, and the option is yours to leave.

Table C — More spelled-alike pairs, worked the same way. The bank's own pairs are its own; these five are worth knowing cold either way. Two words can sound the same while naming different things, so what the sentence is about is the deciding fact. Say the sentence with each word in it, and ask what the word is doing.

Table D — What an ending adds. One rule at a time; find the last letters of the base word first.

Two words are frozen spellings rather than rules, and this bank tests both directly: accommodate doubles the c and the m, and maintenance keeps -ten- in the middle and ends in -ance.

Table E — The apostrophe marks the owner, and the owner has a number. Ask two questions before you write anything: who owns it, and how many of them are there.

Table F — Joining two complete sentences. Count the sentences first: if each half could stand alone, a semicolon or a comma plus a conjunction joins them, and a comma alone or nothing at all does not.

Table G — The comma that sets off, and the comma that may not. A comma is a signpost, not a breath. It marks the seam between two parts of the sentence, so it goes where the sentence has a seam — and, in a plain statement, never between a subject and its verb or between a verb and the words that complete it.

• An opening clause, or an opening phrase of five or more words, takes a comma where the main sentence begins. After the last delivery, the porter locks the gate. The comma that closes the opening belongs after its last word, not before it. A lone comma does not go between the subject and its verb, or between the verb and the words that complete it, in a plain statement, and a pair of commas around an aside may — Marisol, the night dispatcher, signs the log.
• An aside that only adds detail takes a comma at each end. The grain store, the one with the second door, stays locked overnight.

The two jobs meet in one rule, and it is the rule learners most often half-know: words that only add detail take a comma at each end, and words that pick out which one is meant take none. A phrase you can lift out and leave the sentence standing is an aside. A phrase the sentence needs in order to say which one — of two pump rooms, of several dispatchers — is not an aside, and a comma there splits the sentence at a seam it does not have.

• Right: Marisol, the depot's night dispatcher, signs the fuel log. The sentence has already named Marisol, so the title only adds detail, and the sentence stands without it.
• Wrong: Marisol, the depot's night dispatcher signs the fuel log. One comma leaves the detail open at the back, so the reader cannot tell whether the words are an aside or part of the subject — and the sentence splits where it should join.

And the other half of the pair, with no commas at all: The dispatcher who signs the fuel log works nights. Of the depot's dispatchers, this is the one, and the words are doing that work — so they stay inside the sentence.

Table H — A sentence from a piece of one. A sentence needs a subject, a verb that can carry it, and the sense that it stands alone.

Table I — The head of the subject decides the verb. Find the subject's head word — the noun the whole subject hangs on — and match the verb to it. Everything between the two is a decoy.

Table J — The pronoun's job picks its form. Say what the pronoun is doing in the sentence before you look at the options.

Table K — The helper decides the form. Two questions decide every tense-and-form item: what tense has the sentence already set, and what does the word in front of the blank call for?

Table L — The describing phrase sits beside the thing it describes. Read the phrase, then ask what it can describe; a phrase about a thing cannot describe a person.

Inside a sentence the same rule reads: put the describing phrase next to the word it describes, and watch for a phrase left where it can only describe the wrong thing. The technician in the paper gown checked the pump describes the technician, because the phrase sits beside the noun it belongs to. Move that phrase to the end of the same sentence — The technician checked the pump in the paper gown — and it sits beside pump instead, so the sentence can be read as the pump wearing the gown; a phrase that describes a noun belongs next to that noun.

Table M — Tells to ignore. A well-built bank teaches nothing by the shape of the answer sheet.

• Where a choice sits. The key is spread across every position, so no position is likelier than another.
• How long a choice is. No length is a reliable signal: the key is sometimes the longest, sometimes the shortest, and usually neither.
• How many marks a choice has. The right option is not the only one with two commas or the only one with none; some items deliberately offer a distractor with the key's own count placed on the wrong span.
• Which option repeats the sentence's own words. The most familiar-sounding option is often the one that fits the words and misses the job they are doing.
• The order the procedures appear in. Do not read anything into which procedure comes next.

A five-step method for any E.1 item

Use the same five moves every time, and the topic stops feeling like taste.

1. Say what the blank is for. Is the slot a noun, a verb form, a pronoun, or a mark between two words? That single question removes most of the options before you test any of them: a verb form cannot sit in a noun slot, and a comma is not a spelling.
2. Find the one fact the sentence prints. The head word of the subject, the owner and its number, the job the pronoun is doing, the tense the other verbs have set, the noun a describing phrase sits beside. That fact is in the sentence — the frozen spellings and the f-to-v plurals above are the exception, and they are memory — and it is the thing the item is testing.
3. Answer in your own words first. Say the word, the form or the mark you would write, then look at the options. An answer you built from the sentence is much harder to talk yourself out of than an option that merely sounds familiar.
4. Put every option into the sentence and read it whole. Not just the one that looked right. A form that sounds wrong alone can be right in the sentence, and the reverse is the most common way an item is missed.
5. Name the fault on the options you leave. Agreement with the nearer noun, a participle where a verb belongs, a comma alone between two sentences, an apostrophe on the wrong owner. If you cannot name a fault for two options, you have not found the deciding fact yet — go back to step 2.

The ten worked examples

Each example below is on a sentence of its own, so nothing here is a practice item you will meet in the bank.

1. The word the sentence needs [E.1.1]

The clerk carried the ___ to the front desk and stacked it beside the printer.

Worked: Read what the clerk carried: paper and envelopes are things, and the word for them is stationery. The look-alike stationary means standing still — it describes a thing, and nothing here is being described.

Trap: "stationary" is the more familiar word, and the pair differs by one letter at the end, so the ear does not catch it; ask what the word is doing, not what it sounds like.

2. The ending a plural needs [E.1.1]

The fitter packed six ___ of tools behind the seat of the van.

Worked: The base word is pouch, and it ends in ch — one of the hissing endings (s, x, z, ch, sh) that take -es in the plural. Six pouches.

Trap: "pouchs" looks like it follows the ordinary rule, but it drops the e the ending needs, and the word is unsayable without it.

3. Joining two complete sentences [E.1.2]

Which choice joins the two sentences correctly? The tram was late. The passengers waited on the platform.

Worked: Each half could stand alone, so the join must be a semicolon or a comma with a coordinating conjunction. The key is The tram was late, so the passengers waited on the platform.

Trap: "The tram was late, the passengers waited on the platform" is a comma splice — a comma doing a semicolon's work. The comma is not the fault; the missing conjunction is.

4. The apostrophe and the owner [E.1.2]

Which phrase shows the lockers belonging to the porters?

Worked: Ask the two questions. The owner is the porters, and there is more than one of them, so the owner's word already ends in s: the apostrophe goes after that s and nothing is added — the porters' lockers.

Trap: "the porter's lockers" is the singular possessive, correct English for one porter and the wrong owner here; "the porters lockers" has dropped the mark that shows the owner at all.

5. The comma that sets off [E.1.2]

Which choice punctuates the sentence correctly? While the dough rested the baker greased the tins.

Worked: The opening clause runs to rested, so the comma belongs after that word, where the main sentence begins: While the dough rested, the baker greased the tins.

Trap: A comma after greased splits the verb from the words that complete it — a seam the sentence does not have — and leaves the opening clause unmarked.

6. A sentence from a piece of one [E.1.3]

Which choice is a complete sentence?

Worked: Test each candidate for a subject and a verb that can carry it. "Waiting for the kiln to reach temperature" has neither a subject nor a carrying verb; "Because the kiln was still cold" has both but the subordinator because leaves it waiting for a main clause; "For the kiln to hold that heat overnight" is an infinitive and a purpose. The kiln reached temperature is the one sentence.

Trap: A long word group looks like a sentence because it sounds finished. Length is not the test; a subject and a verb that can carry the sentence are.

7. The verb that matches the subject [E.1.3]

Which verb completes the sentence? The drums of solvent ___ in the lockup until the carrier signs for them.

Worked: The subject's head is drums, and there is more than one, so the verb is wait. The phrase of solvent sits between the subject and the verb and does not change its number.

Trap: "waits" agrees with the nearer word solvent, and it is the most common single miss on this procedure; the noun closest to the blank is not the subject.

8. The pronoun's job in the sentence [E.1.3]

Which pronoun belongs in the blank? The scheduler kept the holiday list to ___ until the bids were posted.

Worked: The blank points back at the scheduler — the person who kept the list is also the person nobody else got it from — so the object is the same as the subject, and that job takes the reflexive form, herself. Her is the object form for a different person, and hers is a possessive that stands for something owned.

Trap: "the scheduler kept the list to her" is heard in speech and defended by habit, but it hands the list to somebody else. Ask who did the keeping and who is at the other end of the preposition: when they are the same person, the pronoun wears -self.

9. The tense and the form the sentence has set [E.1.3]

Which verb belongs in the blank? By the time the crew arrived, the storm ___ the whole orchard.

Worked: Two past actions, and the blank is the earlier one: the storm had to flatten the orchard before the crew arrived. The earlier action takes the past perfect — had plus the participle, had flattened.

Trap: "has flattened" is the present perfect, which cannot sit before a point in the past; and plain "flattened" would put both actions at the same time, when the sentence's whole point is their order.

10. The noun the describing phrase sits beside [E.1.3]

Which choice places the describing phrase on the right thing? Tied to the pier, ___.

Worked: Ask what can be tied to a pier. A ferry can; a crew cannot. So the sentence must put the ferry right after the comma — Tied to the pier, the ferry took on crates.

Trap: "Tied to the pier, the crew loaded the ferry" and "The crew tied to the pier loaded the ferry" both read smoothly and both say the crew was tied; the phrase has to describe the noun it sits beside, and a crew cannot be tied to a pier.

The traps, collected

Each trap below is one the named practice items set. Learn them by name, because naming the fault is what stops it happening twice.

• The verb that agrees with the wrong noun. A nearer plural or singular word takes the verb's number, and the subject's own head is ignored (e1-051, e1-055, e1-057, e1-058, e1-059).
• The participle where a verb belongs. Being, been, having, to sit — a form that describes or names an action and cannot carry a sentence (e1-045, e1-047, e1-052).
• The comma alone between two sentences. A comma splice, and its cousin the run-on with no mark at all (e1-018, e1-023, e1-024).
• The word that sounds right. A homophone in the shape the sentence needs, with the wrong meaning (e1-002, e1-008, e1-009).
• The apostrophe on the wrong owner. The right mark for the wrong number — one nurse marked as many, or many marked as one (e1-028, e1-031, e1-034).
• The pronoun in the wrong case. The subject form where the sentence needs an object, or a reflexive with no matching subject (e1-060, e1-062, e1-066).
• The verb that changes tense with no reason. A present form in a past sequence, or a past form after a helper that calls for a participle (e1-071, e1-074, e1-076).
• The describing phrase on the wrong noun. A phrase about a thing, left beside a person, so the sentence says something the writer never meant (e1-077, e1-080, e1-084).
• The comma in the wrong seam. One mark where the sentence needs two, or a mark splitting a subject from its verb (e1-037, e1-040, e1-041).
• The ending that is almost the word. The right base word with the wrong letters at the end (e1-010, e1-014, e1-017).

Answer-choice strategies: three moves for when the answer will not come

1. Say the sentence aloud with your answer in it. The ear catches an agreement or a tense fault that the eye passes over. If you have to stop and start to get through the sentence, look at the two options you are holding again.
2. Name the fault before you choose. Go through the two you are left with and say why one fails: the nearer noun, a participle, a comma alone, the wrong owner. An option you can fault is an option you can leave.
3. Re-read the last few words of the question. "Which choice joins the two sentences" is a different question from "which choice punctuates the sentence", and "which pronoun belongs in the blank" is not "which pronoun is the subject". On this topic the most common miss is the right answer to a slightly different question.

How to practice this

• Practice by procedure, not by item. Drill one procedure at a time, then mix. The rule is what you are drilling; the sentence changes and the deciding fact does not.
• Write the deciding fact next to your answer. "head is stack, so is", "owner porters, plural, apostrophe after the s". A miss with no fact written beside it is a miss you will repeat.
• Keep a list of the faults you keep falling for. If most of your misses are agreement with the nearer noun, the fix is step 2 of the method, not more spelling.
• Work the free Conventions of standard English practice set with a pencil, and write the fault on every option you leave. The set carries items from all ten procedures.
• Keep this guide open beside the set. When an item misses, find the table above that covers it, read the row, and say the rule back in your own words.
• Time yourself across a set once the rules are steady. ATI publishes the English and Language Usage section as 37 minutes, and 33 of the section's questions are scored — Conventions of Standard English carries 12 of them, Knowledge of Language 11, and Vocabulary Acquisition 10.

Where to go next

• Next topic — Knowledge of language — the second of the section's three sub-content areas, in blueprint order.
• The rest of the section — Using language and vocabulary to express ideas in writing.
• The reference table — the rules and the punctuation marks — what each mark does and the error an item builds from it.

This topic sits inside the English and language usage section and carries ATI's published 8% of the exam and 12 of the section's 33 scored items — the blueprint's own split.