TEAS English: knowledge of language study guide

What this topic actually asks of you

Knowledge of language is the second 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. Knowledge of language is 11 of those scored questions, 7%. The third sub-area takes vocabulary; this one takes the choices a writer makes when the sentence already carries the facts and could still be written better.

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

• Most items are a choice between versions of the same sentence; paragraph items choose a sentence. No passage to read, no context to rebuild. One sentence, or one short paragraph, is printed in the stem, and the options are ways of writing it, or the sentences that paragraph is built from. The fact that decides the item is printed in the stem — the repeated word, the list that changes shape, the pronoun with two possible owners, the reader the item names, the sentence that has to come first. Find that 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 sentence that fails for one reason: it keeps a word that repeats another word, it buries a fact under a phrase that says nothing, it breaks the form of one item in a list, it leaves a pronoun free to point at one thing or both, it hides the person the writing has to name, it uses words the reader was never given, or it adds a sentence the paragraph has no place for. 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, so treat the rule, not any one format, as the thing you are drilling.

How a practice item is laid out. A knowledge-of-language item prints a sentence, or a short paragraph with its sentences numbered, and then a set of options. Two habits carry every item: put each option in place and read the whole thing, never the option alone, and count what each option keeps and loses — the fact it drops, the owner it leaves open, the reader it forgets. An option that sounds smooth on its own is often the one 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.2.1 use grammar to enhance clarity in writing · E.2.2 evaluate whether language meets the needs of an audience for a given rhetorical context · E.2.3 develop a well-organized paragraph. The seven procedures below spread across those three, and the method at the end of this page is one method, not seven.

The seven procedures

Every practice item in this topic is one of these seven. Each is worked out in full below — the rule in words, a worked example, and the trap it sets. (The ATI objective each one serves is in brackets, and the fault a wrong option carries is named in Table B.)

1. concision drop the redundancy — the word that repeats another word [E.2.1]. A phrase inside the sentence says the same thing twice: true fact, final outcome, completely empty, basic essentials, free gift, general consensus, reopen again. One word of the phrase is already inside the other, and cutting it costs no fact at all.
2. concision cut the empty phrase — the phrase that adds nothing [E.2.1]. The sentence is padded with words that carry no fact: at the present time, on a daily basis, is able to, make a decision, as to whether, in the absence of, for the reason that, in the majority of cases, take into consideration, with a view to, she is of the opinion that. Each has a shorter word that says the same thing, and the shorter word hides no fact the sentence needs.
3. parallelism one shared form — one form for items that do the same job [E.2.1]. A list, a set of steps or a pair of goals: every item has to be written the same way — three past-tense verbs, three gerunds, three noun phrases, three phrases that begin with a preposition, or three instructions in the base form. One item in a different form is the fault.
4. clear referent, one antecedent — a pronoun with two possible owners, and the fix: the noun it stands for, named again, so the pronoun keeps one owner [E.2.1]. A pronoun (it, them, she, this) needs one antecedent — the noun it stands for — and the sentence gives it two things it could point at. The writing has to settle the owner: either the sentence keeps one possible owner, or it names the thing again instead of using the pronoun.
5. voice name the actor — the actor, named when the actor matters [E.2.1]. When a report, a log or a note has to show who did the work, the sentence names that person as the one who acted. When nobody knows who did it, the passive sentence is the honest one, and a choice that names somebody invents a fact the writer does not have.
6. register match the audience — the words the reader and the purpose call for [E.2.2]. The item names the reader and what is being written, and the words have to match both: plain words for a patient or a family member, no slang in a printed notice, the second person for a set of steps, and a formal voice — no shortened forms, no slang, plain words rather than stiff ones — for a board, an insurer or a reply to a complaint.
7. paragraph organization — the point, the order, and the line that does not belong [E.2.3]. A short paragraph with its sentences numbered. One sentence states the point the rest support; the sentences are in an order their own content forces; one sentence may belong to another subject altogether; and a point is best supported by a sentence whose number or reading bears on the claim itself.

Reference tables: the rules to know cold

Table A — The seven procedures, and the question each one asks. The bold label is what the practice bank prints; the wording column is how the question is worded in practice.

Table B — The named faults a wrong option carries. Most distractors in this topic are one of these, and the name is the thing to write beside your answer.

Table C — The repetition, and the word that already says it. Read the left-hand phrase, find the word inside it that repeats the other, and the cut writes itself.

Table D — The empty phrase, and the short word that replaces it.

Table E — The list, the shared form, and what breaks it. Find the form the first two items share, then read the third.

Table F — The pronoun: settle the owner, or name the thing again. Two ways to clear the same pronoun, and the answer has to keep whatever the stem says must stay.

Table G — The actor: name the person the writing needs. The passive is not wrong; it just hides who did the work. Name the actor when the actor matters, and leave the actor out when nobody knows it.

Table H — The reader, the purpose, and the words. Read the reader and the purpose the item names before you read the options.

Table I — The paragraph: four asks, four moves.

The rules in words, each with one right and one wrong sentence

Seven rules, and each pair of sentences shows the rule working and the rule broken. These sentences are written for this page alone.

1. Cut the word that repeats another. Right: The foreman wrote down the fact that the dock was locked. Wrong: The foreman wrote down the true fact that the dock was locked.
2. Cut the phrase that carries no fact. Right: The clerk filed the invoice because the driver asked. Wrong: The clerk filed the invoice for the reason that the driver made a request.
3. Give the items that do one job one form. Right: The apprentice measured the timber, cut the boards, and stacked the offcuts. Wrong: The apprentice measured the timber, cut the boards, and stacking the offcuts.
4. Settle the pronoun, or name the thing again. Right: The keeper weighed the crate and the pallet and wrote the crate's weight on the ticket. Wrong: The keeper weighed the crate and the pallet and wrote it on the ticket.
5. Name the actor when the actor matters, and nobody when nobody knows. Right: The night fitter sealed the crate before the van left. Right, the other way: The crate was found open at dawn, and nobody saw who opened it. Wrong: The crate was found open at dawn, and the yard staff opened it.
6. Match the words to the reader and the purpose. Right (a customer): Keep the ticket with your luggage until the crossing ends. Wrong (a customer): Retain the aforementioned ticket for the duration of the passage. Right (a board): The depot replaced the seal on the crate within two days. Wrong (a board): We fixed the seal, no worries.
7. State the point once, order the sentences by what they need, and cut the line that leaves the subject. Right: The print room is cleaned every Friday before the night run comes in. The presses are wiped down and the floor is swept. Since the Friday cleaning began, paper-dust jams have fallen from six a month to one. Wrong: The print room is cleaned every Friday before the night run comes in. A jammed press held up the run for twenty minutes last month. The ferry timetable changes in October.

A five-step method for any E.2 item

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

1. Say what the item is really asking. Is it asking for the shortest faithful version, the list in one form, the sentence with one owner for its pronoun, the person the note must credit, the words the reader needs, or the sentence the paragraph is built on? That one question removes the items that are not about the same skill.
2. Find the fact the stem prints. The doubled word, the empty phrase, the list and its shared form, the two things the pronoun could point at, the person the writing must name, the reader and the purpose, the sentence that states the point. That fact is in the stem, and it is the thing the item is testing.
3. Answer in your own words first. Write the version you would send, then look at the options. A version you built from the stem is much harder to talk yourself out of than an option that merely sounds familiar.
4. Put every option in place and count what it keeps. In concision items, name the fact each shorter option drops. In referent items, count the owners the pronoun could still have, then check that the choice keeps every fact the stem says must stay. In voice items, ask who each option says did the work. In paragraph items, put the sentence where it is claimed to belong and read the paragraph through.
5. Name the fault on the options you leave. The redundancy kept, a fact dropped, a form broken, a second owner, an actor hidden or invented, the wrong reader, a line off the subject. 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 written for this page, on its own sentence or its own short paragraph, so nothing here is a practice item you will meet in the bank.

1. The word that repeats another word

The shift leads reached a general consensus before the handoff.

Worked: General repeats what consensus already says — a consensus is the judgment most of those concerned have reached. Cut it: The shift leads reached a consensus before the handoff.

Trap: General consensus sounds natural because the two words travel together in speech, and an ear that has heard the pair a thousand times will not flag it. Apply a definition test rather than an ear test: say what the noun means on its own, then ask whether the first word adds a fact to it.

2. The redundancy inside the phrase itself

The clinic gave advance warning of the closure.

Worked: A warning is given in advance by definition, so advance says what warning already says. Cut it: The clinic gave warning of the closure.

Trap: The pair is so common in speech that it reads as one word, and a careful reader can talk themselves into keeping both. Say what the noun means on its own, then ask whether the first word adds a fact to it.

3. The phrase that carries no fact

The driver pauses to make a decision about the route.

Worked: Make a decision spends three words on what decide says in one, and nothing is lost by the swap: The driver pauses to decide the route.

Trap: Make a decision is the phrase a careful writer reaches for when the sentence should sound deliberate, so the fault is invisible from the inside. Look for the short word that says the same thing, then check that the reason, the time and the condition of the sentence are all still there.

4. The list in one form

The librarian stamped the card, shelved the book, and checking the list.

Worked: Two items are past-tense verbs and the third is a gerund. Bring the third into line: The librarian stamped the card, shelved the book, and checked the list.

Trap: The break often sits in the last item, and the last item is the one the eye reads least carefully — but the middle item is easy to skim past too, so the list sounds fine until it is read to the end. Read the verb of every item, in order, before you look at the choices.

5. The pronoun with one owner

The keeper weighed the crate and the pallet and wrote it on the ticket.

Worked: Two things are named and it could be either, or both. Name the thing the sentence means: The keeper weighed the crate and the pallet and wrote the crate's weight on the ticket.

Trap: The nearest noun is not the rule, and the sentence's own sense is not the rule either. Count the owners the pronoun could still have; if there are two, the writing has settled nothing — even when one of the two is the obvious candidate to you.

6. The actor, when the writing has to credit somebody

The accident report must show who sealed the crate, and the foreman sealed it. The crate was sealed before the van left.

Worked: The sentence is good English and useless to the report: it never says who did the sealing. The report must show that the foreman sealed the crate, so The foreman sealed the crate before the van left.

Trap: A passive sentence is not a fault by itself — this is not a topic where every passive is wrong. The fault is the missing fact: the report exists to carry the name, and the name is not there.

7. The actor, when nobody knows who it was

The note must not name anyone: the seal was cut, and nobody saw who cut it.

Worked: The honest sentence reports what was found and names no one: The seal was cut before the van left. An option that names the evening crew would put a guess into a report that cannot carry one.

Trap: The pull to fill an empty subject is strong, and a named person sounds more like a report than a bare passive does. The item's own line is the test: if the stem says nobody knows, then any option with a name in it has invented a fact.

8. The words the reader needs

A printer is writing one page for a new apprentice who has never used the cutting bench. Which version fits? Slide the guard down, then hold the sheet against the fence and pull the handle.

Worked: The reader is new, so every word is a word the page itself gives: guard, fence and handle are the names of the parts in front of them, in the order the apprentice will touch them.

Trap: The version that sounds most professional — Ensure the guard assembly is positioned prior to actuating the clamp — is the one a reader who has never seen the bench cannot use. When the stem names a reader, the reader decides.

9. The words a formal reader needs

A water plant is answering an insurer's written query about a broken valve. Which version fits? The plant replaced the valve on the north line within five days of the inspection.

Worked: The insurer is a formal reader, so the reply writes every word out (did not rather than didn't), uses no slang, and still says plainly what the plant did. We for the plant and you for the reader are plain-language moves, not faults; the shortened form is the fault.

Trap: A formal reader can tempt you the other way, into long legal-sounding phrases (the aforementioned valve, herewith, shall). Formal means no shortcuts and no slang — not a stiffer word where a plain one will do.

10. The paragraph: the point, the order, and the proof

Read the note. (1) The print room is cleaned every Friday before the night run. (2) The presses are wiped down and the floor is swept. (3) Since the Friday cleaning began, paper-dust jams have fallen from six a month to one. (4) The cleaning starts at four in the afternoon. Which sentence states the point, and which one carries the proof?

Worked: Sentence (1) names the subject and the practice the other three serve, so it is the point. Sentence (3) carries the reading that bears on that practice — the jam count before the cleaning and after it — so it is the sentence a question about proof would ask for. Sentences (2) and (4) are the steps and the clock: they support the practice without stating it or proving it.

Trap: A step and a point both sound like instructions, and a schedule detail can look like a proof until you ask what it measures. A point sentence names the whole practice; a proof sentence carries a specific reading that bears on it — a number is evidence only when it bears on the claim.

The traps, collected

Each line names the trap, the items that set it, and the move that clears it.

• The redundancy the ear has stopped hearing. A pair of words spoken so often that they read as one word (e2-001, e2-005, e2-008). Say what each word does on its own; when both say the same thing, one of them is the word the item is about.
• The empty phrase inside a careful sentence. A phrase that is there to sound deliberate; the short word says the same thing, and no fact leaves with it (e2-012, e2-013, e2-014, e2-020).
• The shortest option that costs a fact. Two options are shorter than the answer, and each of them is missing a different detail — the time, the count, the place or the adjective (e2-002, e2-005, e2-018, e2-015). Name the detail each shorter option drops before you take the briefest one.
• The list that breaks in one item — often the last, sometimes the middle. A noun phrase where the other items keep their verb, or a verb that changes shape in the third position (e2-023, e2-025, e2-027, e2-028, e2-033). Read every item's verb, in order, before you read the choices.
• The pronoun with two owners — and the answer that names one. When two things are named, the fix is either a sentence with one possible owner or a sentence that names the thing again (e2-035, e2-037, e2-040, e2-043, e2-044, e2-045). The stem says which facts have to stay; an option keeps them by holding one owner, or by naming the thing again — an option that deletes a fact the stem says must stay is no answer, even when its pronoun is clear.
• The report that has to carry a name. When the stem says the writing must credit somebody, the answer names that person (e2-049, e2-050, e2-052, e2-053, e2-054, e2-055). Watch for the option that names the wrong person: it looks like the answer and credits the wrong worker.
• The note that must not guess. When the stem says nobody knows who did it, the passive sentence is the answer, and an option with a name in it has invented a fact (e2-046, e2-047, e2-048, e2-051, e2-078, e2-079).
• The stiff word for an everyday reader. Shall, hereby, administer, instill for a patient or a family member (e2-057, e2-058, e2-062, e2-063, e2-066). The stiffer option is not the safer one.
• The hallway word for a formal reader. Slang or a shortened form in a letter to a board, an insurer, or a reply to a complaint (e2-059, e2-060, e2-061, e2-066). Check the reader and the purpose the stem names before you read a single option.
• The detail dressed up as the point. A step, a rule or a schedule detail can be written so that it sounds like the point (e2-067, e2-068, e2-069). Only the sentence carrying the whole practice is the point; everything else is support.
• The order asked three ways. One item asks which sentence belongs first, another which belongs last, a third which belongs second (e2-070, e2-071, e2-072). Follow what each sentence needs from another, not the transition word at its front.
• The clinical line that still leaves the subject. The sentence that does not belong can be clinic work in every word and still not be this paragraph (e2-073, e2-074, e2-075).
• The rule where the proof should be. A point supported by a restatement rather than a number; the proof sentence is the one carrying the reading, the count or the measurement (e2-076, e2-077).

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

1. Put every option in place and read the whole thing. Not just the one that looked right. This topic is built on the gap between an option that sounds smooth alone and an option that works in the sentence, and the second reading is where the fault shows up.
2. Name the fault before you choose. Go through the two you are left with and say why one fails: a word that repeats another, a fact dropped, a list out of form, a second owner for the pronoun, the name the writing needed, the reader it forgot. An option you can fault is an option you can leave.
3. Re-read the last few words of the question. "Which choice is the most concise" is a different question from "which choice keeps one form", and "which sentence states the point" is not "which sentence carries the proof". On this topic the most common miss is the right answer to a slightly different question.

How to practice this

• 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. "true fact — fact", "two owners, so the answer names the crate", "the reader is a board, so no shortened forms". 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 the shortest option that dropped a fact, the fix is step 4 of the method, not more vocabulary.
• Work the free Knowledge of language practice set with a pencil, and write the fault on every option you leave. The set carries items from all seven 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 — Using language and vocabulary to express ideas in writing — the last sub-content area in blueprint order.
• The rest of the section — Conventions of standard English.

This topic sits inside the English and language usage section and carries ATI's published 7% of the exam and 11 of the section's 33 scored items — the blueprint's own split.