Parts of Speech, Correct Usage & Word Forms

Parts of Speech, Correct Usage & Word Forms

Scholastic Testing Service describes the Language subtest partly in terms of correct and incorrect usage of the parts of speech. That phrasing is a study instruction: a large share of the 60 items turn on whether a word is doing the right grammatical job in its sentence. Students who can name what each word is doing catch errors that students relying on what "sounds right" walk past.

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The Eight Parts of Speech

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Function Decides, Not Form

The same word can belong to different categories depending on its job.

The practical consequence: never label a word from its ending alone. Ask what it is doing. This is exactly why friendly is an adjective despite the -ly, and why fast is an adverb in he runs fast.

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Verbs: The Forms That Get Tested

Every verb has four principal parts, and irregular verbs are where the HSPT concentrates its errors.

• Wrong: He had went to the library. Right: He had gone to the library. The past participle, not the simple past, follows a helping verb.
• Wrong: I seen the announcement. Right: I saw the announcement. A participle cannot stand alone as the main verb.

Lie versus lay: lie takes no object (the book lies on the table); lay requires one (lay the book on the table). The confusion is compounded by the fact that lay is also the past tense of lie, which is why this pair appears so often on tests.

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Adjective versus Adverb

Adjectives answer which, what kind, how many about nouns. Adverbs answer how, when, where, to what extent about verbs, adjectives, and other adverbs.

The Linking-Verb Exception

Linking verbs - be, seem, become, appear - and the sense verbs look, feel, smell, sound, taste connect the subject to a word describing the subject, so they take an adjective, not an adverb.

• The soup tastes delicious. (not deliciously)
• She looks confident. (not confidently)
• I feel bad about the mistake. (I feel badly literally claims your sense of touch is impaired.)

The test: replace the verb with a form of is. If the sentence still makes sense - the soup is delicious - you have a linking verb and need an adjective.

Good versus Well

Good is an adjective; well is normally an adverb. The exception is health: well functions as an adjective meaning not ill.

• She is a good writer. (adjective modifying writer)
• She writes well. (adverb modifying writes)
• After the flu, he finally feels well. (health)

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Nouns and Their Forms

• Possessive singular: add an apostrophe and s - the author's draft.
• Possessive plural ending in s: add only an apostrophe - the authors' drafts.
• Irregular plurals: child/children, woman/women, tooth/teeth, mouse/mice, crisis/crises, criterion/criteria, datum/data.
• Collective nouns - team, jury, committee, family, class - take singular verbs and singular pronouns when the group acts as one unit: The committee has released its report.

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Prepositions and Conjunctions

Prepositions begin phrases that modify: of the students, beneath the surface, during the assembly. Two consequences appear on the exam constantly:

1. The subject of a sentence is never inside a prepositional phrase. Cross the phrase out and the true subject appears.
2. A pronoun following a preposition takes the objective case: between you and me, to Marcus and her.

Conjunctions come in three kinds:

• Coordinating (and, but, or, nor, for, yet, so) join equals.
• Subordinating (because, although, since, while, unless, if) attach a dependent clause to an independent one.
• Correlative pairs (either...or, neither...nor, not only...but also) must join grammatically parallel elements: She was not only diligent but also curious - adjective paired with adjective.

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Error Types by Category

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A Fifteen-Second Diagnostic

On any Language item, run this scan before deciding:

1. Find the main verb and confirm its form and tense.
2. Find the subject by crossing out prepositional phrases.
3. Check every modifier: does it describe a noun (adjective) or a verb (adverb)?
4. Check every pronoun for case and for a clear antecedent.

If all four pass, No error is a legitimate answer - and a common one.