Proofreading, Revising, & Editing Skills PRETEST

Which of the following is a complete sentence?

• Because night fell.
• Jim ate the sandwich.
• On a tree-lined path.
• In our neck of the woods.

Which of the following sentences is correctly punctuated?

• In the dead of night. The van pulled up.
• Chuck would not, give Jaime the seat.
• Over coffee and toast, Kelly told me about her new job
• Lemonade. My favorite drink.

Which of the following sentences correctly uses a conjunction?

• I cannot play in the game until I practice more.
• I hid in the basement my brother was mad at me.
• Victor erased the answering machine message Nora would not find out.
• She scored a goal won the game.

Which of the underlined words or phrases in the following sentence could be deleted without changing the meaning?
Various different companies offer incentive plans to their employees.

• different
• incentive
• plans
• employees

Which of the RED words in the following sentence is an unnecessary qualifier or intensifier?
Many experts consider the stained glass in that church to be the very best.

• experts
• stained
• that
• very

Determine whether the green phrase in the following sentence is a participial phrase, a gerund phrase, an infinitive phrase, or an appositive phrase.
Having missed the bus, Allen knew he would be late for work.

• participial phrase
• gerund phrase
• infinitive phrase
• appositive phrase

Choose the best conjunction to combine this sentence pair.
We can ask directions. We can use a map.

• and
• but
• or
• because

The following sentence pair can be revised into one better sentence. Choose the sentence that is the best revision.
The bicycle tire is flat. The bicycle tire is on the bike.

• The bicycle tire is on the bike and the bicycle tire is flat.
• The flat bicycle tire is on the bike.
• On the bike, the bicycle tire there is flat.
• The bicycle tire on the bike is flat.

Choose the sentence that begins with a phrase modifier.

• He kept his bottle cap collection in a shoebox.
• In the event of an emergency, do not panic.
• I was pleased to see that my coworker had been promoted.
• The octopus has been at the zoo for 20 years.

Select the letter for the topic sentence in the following paragraph.

• He was born in 1818.
• He was educated in the universities of Moscow and St. Petersburg.
• In 1852, he abandoned poetry and drama and devoted himself to fiction.
• Ivan Turgenev was a critically acclaimed Russian author.