TEAS grammar and punctuation: the ten rules that decide the item

TEAS grammar and punctuation questions are decided by rules, not by ear, and the rules are short enough to memorize. The Conventions of Standard English sub-content area carries ATI's published weight of 8% of the exam, 12 scored items — the largest of the English section's three sub-content areas — and the ten rules below cover most of what its objectives name. The grammar points here are the standard usages; where a point is unsettled, the standard general references are Merriam-Webster and the Chicago Manual of Style. The writing advice is sourced to the public-domain Elements of Style (Strunk), and the plain-language guidance to Plain language (digital.gov, adapted from PlainLanguage.gov).

The ten rules that decide the item

1. A sentence needs a subject and a finite verb. The subject can be left unwritten rather than absent — "Go to room 4." is a sentence whose subject is the understood you — and the finite verb is the one carrying the tense. A group of words with only a participle and no finite verb is a fragment: "Running through the hallway." The fix is to add the actor and the tense — "The nurse ran through the hallway."
2. Two independent clauses need more than a comma. A comma splice joins them with a comma alone, and a run-on joins them with nothing. Fix with a period, a semicolon, or a comma plus a coordinating conjunction (for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so). (Some style guides allow the comma between two very short parallel clauses; our conventions items treat the comma alone as an error.)
3. A verb agrees with its head noun, not with the words between. "The box of supplies is heavy." Cross out the prepositional phrase and the verb is obvious.
4. A pronoun agrees with its antecedent, and its case follows its job. Who is a subject, whom is an object — a distinction our conventions items test and ordinary speech often drops; use I as a subject and me as an object. When two people share the subject, test the pronoun alone: "She and I went" passes because "I went" does.
5. Apostrophes mark possession or contraction, never a plural. Its is possessive, it's is "it is". A plural is patients, and the plural possessive is patients'. The one style-guide exception is the plural of a single letter ("mind your p's and q's"), which our conventions items are unlikely to ask for.
6. Commas separate items in a series, follow an introductory element, and set off non-essential information. Keep the comma before and in a series (the serial comma); a short introductory phrase can go without one, but a full introductory clause almost always takes it. A clause that could be lifted out without changing which thing you mean takes commas; a clause that restricts it does not: of the three patients, "the one who was admitted" takes none.
7. A semicolon joins independent clauses; a colon introduces a list or an explanation. Both need a complete sentence in front of them.
8. Modifiers sit next to the word they modify. A dangling modifier leaves its subject implied and unattached: "Walking down the hall, the chart fell" says the chart was walking.
9. Items in a list or a comparison take the same grammatical form. "Collecting vitals, recording them, and reporting the results" is parallel; mixing a noun with a verb is not.
10. Tense stays consistent inside one account unless the timeline changes. Shifting from past to present in a single account is an error, not variety.

Punctuation, by what it does

Style is scored too

Knowledge of language is about choices rather than errors: which version of a sentence is clearest, and which word fits the meaning. (Using language and vocabulary is word parts and meaning in context, covered on word parts.) Three habits answer those items.

• Prefer the active voice when the actor matters. "The aide recorded the vitals" beats "the vitals were recorded by the aide."
• Cut needless words. Strunk's rule is the heart of it: "Omit needless words." When two choices say exactly the same thing, the shorter one is usually the better answer.
• Match the register to the passage. A formal passage keeps its formality — no contractions, no slang — and consistency with the surrounding text beats a sentence that is merely grammatical.

The four traps, and their fixes

• Sounding right is not being right. Read the whole sentence, then find its subject and verb before choosing.
• One letter apart. Its/it's, who/whom, affect/effect: check the job the word is doing in the sentence, not how it sounds.
• Two errors instead of one. When the choices differ in punctuation and in wording, one choice fixes both; a choice that fixes one and introduces another is wrong.
• The most formal choice is not always right. A choice that is grammatical but wordy or inconsistent loses to a plain one that is consistent.

Where to practice this

• Conventions of standard English practice — the free set, with an explanation on every item
• Knowledge of language practice — register, clarity and concision
• English practice — the whole section, all three sub-content areas

The vocabulary half of the section is on word parts, and the method is worked through in the conventions guide.

Sources: The Elements of Style, William Strunk Jr. (public domain) for the writing advice; Plain language (digital.gov, adapted from PlainLanguage.gov) for the plain-language guidance; Merriam-Webster and the Chicago Manual of Style as the general references for the points Strunk does not address. No prep book or prep site is used.

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