Last Friday, in sympathy with the children of Trinidad and Tobago who, last Tuesday, sat the Secondary Entrance Assessment examination, I began an SEA test paper myself. My under-performance in the maths section last week suggests trade school for me, so it would be good to do better in the Language Arts, but I don't hold a lot of hope out for myself there, since I don't understand why Language Arts isn't called English. I'll finish the 11-Plus/SEA next Friday with the essay. On to language arts, then, with the hope that I can at least lift my grade out of the maths doldrums. I can't do the comprehension at all, since reproducing the passage would use up all my space.
Language Arts. 80 minutes.
Section A. Write in the spaces the appropriate form of the word in capital letters.
Q 1. All the members of the Manning family were pleased with their inherit. Church or perhaps professional league or maybe hotel room.
Q 2. Tiger Woods success completed another golf tournament. Tiger Woods successfully completed another golf tournament but his marriage figures were way above par, with blonde, semi-literate waitresses featuring in many hole-in-ones. Skip to next section.
Underline the word that makes each sentence correct.
Q 7. The Guidance (counsellor, councillor) helped to mould many students' life. I think this is a misplaced spot-the-grammatical-mistakes question. If Guidance has a capital G, Counsellor should too. And it's either 'many students' lives or 'many a student life, perhaps even 'many student's life,' but it's definitely not 'many students' life'.
Q 8.We (herd, heard) a loud noise outside the window. Definitely "herd", if it's Carnival time and the sheep we call the Trini population are accepting the cacophony and eardrum-bursting noise levels.
Skip the comprehension, since understanding plays no part in Trini life, as the whole Nizam Mohammed fiasco proves: it's not whether he's right or wrong, it's whether someone in charge of a supposedly impartial body should make any statement anywhere that could be interpreted as reflecting a personal bias.
Write the appropriate form of the word in capital letters in each sentence.
Q 11. The student gave a very accurate DESCRIBE of the burglar. The student gave a very accurate prescription for the burglar, namely: I'll pretend not to recognise you in the ID parade and you won't have your gang brothers kill me during maths class.
Q 20. The new principal FORCE the school's rules. The word 'force' is not a form of the word 'enforce' or vice versa; it's like having a question reading. Mary was told she had to fill the forms out in TRIP; because the letters t, r, i and p are in triplicate doesn't mean triplicate has anything to do with a journey; unless the destination is trade school. Skip to next section.
Write the simple present tense of the verb in the brackets.
Q 22. Ryan (scored) another impressive century. This is clearly not Ryan Hinds, who was out for 2 in the Test series West Indies lost to Bangladesh. Rewrite it as, "Ryan scored another predictable duck" and you get full marks. Skip to next section.
Underline the word in brackets that completes each sentence.
Q 36. Our dogs always (hides, hide) their bones in the garden. Depends on where the garden is, if it's a Westmoorings townhouse, the dog can't hide the bone because there is no garden, just one concrete strip in front for the car and another in the back, for the barbecue pit.
Q 37. Miss Jackson's class (win, wins) the Attendance Shield most of the times. The expression is, "most of the time;" even if it happens more than once, it doesn't become most of the timeses.
Q 39. His knowledge of many languages (has, have) proved very useful. The answer is "has", of course, but the premise itself is doubtful: the only languages you need to know to get ahead in Trinidad are (1) obscene; (2) Bible quotations: and (3) barefaced lying. Skip on.
Aha! At last! Write A, B or C to indicate where the grammatical errors occur; if there is no error, write the letter D.
Q 50. Jenny (a) like to visit the library/ (b) every Thursday/ (c) after school. C, obviously; Jenny not wasting holiday time in the library, Jenny heading straight for the maxi car park to wine back on the gangsta juniors.
Q 55 (a) The ship (b) with its crew (c) was lost. If the ship concerned is the 'ship of state', write down a D with an ink-pen, because that's the God-honest truth.
Rewrite the sentences changing from the passive to the active voice.
Q 58. The book is being read by most of the class. If most of the class read the book, you can be sure it had plenty pictures in it; of big-bottomed red girls wining. Rewrite the sentences changing from active to passive voice.
Q 59. Mother invited Uncle Peter to our thanksgiving. There is nothing grammatically wrong with the sentence but it should be rewritten as "Uncle Nizam asked Ma to make sure it had a curry version of everything except the pork for our thanksgiving."
Write a single word to replace the underlined ones.
Q 68. The man who told jokes was extremely hilarious. Mr Manning was extremely hilarious.
Q 69. There was a special convention for people with assets in excess of a million dollars. There was a special convention called Cabinet.
BC Pires is looking for him dinosauraus.
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