 Read questions before reading the section; make
predictions
 Underline important statements or words as you read
 If a question cites a specific line or paragraph, go back
and re-read the line in context
 Be careful of using prior knowledge to answer the
questions; you should select an answer based only on
what you have read
 The ‘k’ is substituted for ‘c’ if followed by ‘e’, ‘i,’ or ‘ y’
 Poker, risky, token
 In words that end in a silent ‘e’, drop it before adding a
vowel suffix
 Ride  riding; nose  nosy; age  aging
 Exceptions: If the word ends in –ce or –ge, you have to
keep the silent ‘e’: change  changeable; notice 
noticeable
 Exceptions: Keep ‘e’ if adding a consonant suffix: like 
likeness; entire  entirely; arrange  arrangement
 ‘I’ before ‘e’, except after ‘c’, or when sounded as ‘a’ as in
‘neighbor’ or ‘weigh’
 Believe, piece, thief
 Change final ‘y’ to ‘i’ before a suffix, unless suffix
begins with ‘i’
 Defy  defiance; party  parties; pity  pitiful
 Try  trying; copy  copying; occupy  occupying
 Double final consonant before a suffix beginning with
a vowel when both a single vowel precedes the
consonant and the consonant ends in an accented
syllable or one-syllable word
 Stopping, admitted, occurrence
 Stooping, benefited, delightful
 Try to put the word in context
 Determine connotation
 Think of similar sounding or looking words
 Ab/abs = away from, off
 Acri/acu = bitter, sharp
 -Able/-ible = ability
 Agri/agro = relating to fields/soil/agriculture
 Alb/albo = white; without pigment
 Am/ami/amor = love, like, liking
 Ambi = both
 Annu/ann/enni = yearly
 Anti/ant = against
 Aqu = water
 Belli = war
 Bene = good, well, gentle
 Bi = two  tri = three
 Carn = flesh
 Cap/capt = head
 -cide = to kill; to cut down
 Centr = center
 Clam/claim = to cry out
 Co = together
 Eco = household, environment
 Poly = many
 Viv = life
 All words in a proper noun (particular person, place, or
thing) are capitalized
 Exception: Do NOT capitalize small words such as ‘the’
and ‘of’ (Romeo and Juliet)
 Exception of the exception: DO capitalize small words such
as ‘the’ if it is the first or last word in the title (The Pearl)
 Proper nouns include geographical names (the
Euphrates River), titles for people (Dr. Phil),
organizations and businesses (Price Waterhouse
Coopers), languages (Spanish), specific school subjects
(Algebra 2), historical events (the Revolutionary War),
periods of time (the Renaissance), documents (the
Constitution), days, months, and holidays, but not
seasons
 To separate items in a series (I ate milk, cereal, and a
banana)
 Between two or more adjectives that come before a
noun (I own a rusty, dilapidated car).
 Exception: Do NOT use a comma if the adjectives are
used together to express a single idea
 Ex: I own an expensive German camera.
 To separate long clauses like in a compound sentence
 To separate an appositive phrase (John, a responsible
boy, did his homework)
 After a noun of direct address (John, give me your
homework)
 Use a colon before a list of items in a sentence but
never after a verb or preposition
 Ex: Please bring the following: your book, your pencil,
and your brain!
 Use a semicolon in the place of a conjunction to join
two independent clauses
 Ex: I brought my brain; however, I did not do well on the
test.
 To form a contraction
 Do not  Don’t
 To show possession
 Add ‘s to most singular and plural nouns that don’t end
in s
 Girl  girl’s; children  children’s
 Add ‘ to most plural nouns ending in s
 Girls  girls’; students  students’
 To form the plural of symbols and numbers
 Exception: do NOT use an apostrophe to form the plural
of years or decades (the 1920s)
 Subject/Verb agreement
 Subject v. Object pronouns
 TAKE FROM v. BRING TO
 Adjective vs. adverb
 Few vs. less
 Hanged vs. hung
 Lay vs. lie
 Watch out for double negatives
 There vs. they’re vs. their
 Who’s vs. whose
 Irregular past participles
 Never end a sentence with a preposition
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
A singular verb goes with a singular noun, and a plural
verb goes with a plural noun.
If you use ‘and’ to join a compound subject, use a
plural verb
If you use or, nor, either…or, neither…nor to join a
compound subject, use the verb that agrees with the
nearer subject
Titles and names always take a singular verb
Some nouns that end in ‘s’ are actually singular
 Subject Pronouns (nominative case): I, you, he, she, it, we,
they
 Used as subjects, and also to replace a subject if the verb is a
linking verb
 Object Pronouns (objective case): me, you, him, her, it, us,
them
 Used as direct or indirect objects or as objects of the
preposition
 To rest or to remain
 To put or to place
 Intransitive (never takes
 Transitive (takes a direct
a direct object)
 Lie  lying  lay 
(has) lain
 Examples:
 I think I need to lie
down.
 Are you lying awake at
night?
 He has lain down to
rest.
object)
 Lay  laying  laid 
(has) laid
 Examples:
 Lay the book down for
me.
 He laid the food on the
table.
 She has laid the
homework on her desk.
 “to execute”
 “to suspend”
 People are hanged
 Objects are hung
 Hang  is hanging 
 Hang  is hanging 
hanged  (has) hanged
 Examples:
hung  (has) hung
 Examples:
 Please hang this
picture on the wall.
 That poster has hung
on my wall all year.
 What is hanging from
your mouth?
 The witch will hang
unless she confesses.
 The warlock has
hanged himself.
 Many verbs have irregular past participles. In other words,
you can’t just add –d or –ed to their base forms:
 Be  has been
 Hit  has hit
 Become  has become
 Swing  has swung
 Sit  has sat
 On the COOP you will often see irregular verbs that change
from the i in the base form to a u in the past participle:
 Begin  has begun
 Drink  has drunk
 Ring  has rung
 Swim  has swum
 Use few, fewer, and fewest with countable things
 There are few students in the classroom.
 There are fewer students in the other classroom.
 Of the three classrooms, this one has the fewest
students.
 Use little, less, and least with things that can’t be
counted
 There is little happiness when students take tests.
 There is less happiness when students take two tests
than when they take one.
 There is the least amount of happiness when students
take standardized tests.
 A complete sentence must have a subject and a verb 




in other words, there must be a ‘who’ and a ‘what’
Subordinating conjunctions will make a clause
subordinate, and therefore an incomplete sentence
Verbal phrases are not complete sentences and must
be joined with an independent clause
Don’t be confused by long, descriptive subjects that
don’t have a ‘what’
Don’t be confused by long, descriptive predicates that
don’t have a ‘who’