Liz’s World

Hi, everyone! One thing I haven’t really talked about a lot is the GED multiple-choice writing test. To me, the GED essay is more important…it’s easier to learn to write a better essay than to learn all the little grammar on the GED writing multiple-choice test. But all the stuff on the GED writing test also helps you write better…clearer…and getting a higher score is always better!

So here’s a GED practice question, like is on the GED writing test:

Sentence: Flowers potted plants, and potting soil are all high-turnover products in our business.

Which correction should be made to this sentence?

1. replace are with our
2. remove the comma after plants
3. insert a comma after flowers
4. replace are with is
5. no correction is necessary

So, what do you think? Do you know what the best answer is? One thing you’ll see on the writing choice all the time is “no correction is necessary.” Most of the questions give you the choice to make no changes…which can make it hard to use elimination to find the right answer. It’s still good to try to eliminate wrong answer, though. The more bad choices you can get rid of, the better chance you have of getting the right answer.

The first answer says to replace “are” with “our.” They both sound alike, so you need to know what they mean. “Are” is a verb, the plural of “is.” And “our” is a pronoun meaning “belonging to us.” So, which one is right? I think it’s “are,” because you could say “potting soil is high-turnover.” So those other things and potting soil together are high turnover. So answer 1 isn’t right.

Answer 2 says to take out the comma after plants. Well, I know that there’s two times you put a comma before the word “and.” One time is if the word “and” is joining two sentences. Well, that’s not true here because “flowers potted plants” isn’t a whole sentence. The other time is when “and” is used as part of a series of three or more things…how many things are being joined here? Two? Or more? Let’s see… “flowers potted plants” kind of looks like one thing, but it’s really not. What’s a flowers potted plants? It means flowers as one thing, and potted plants as a second thing. And potting soil is the third thing. I think I see the problem here. There needs to be a comma between “flowers” and “potted plants” to show that they’re two separate things.

So, is that one of the answers? Yes, it’s answer 3. That’s the right answer!

I’ll get you more practice GED writing questions in the future…and if you have a grammar question you want me to write about, leave a comment on my blog! Good luck with the GED studying.