Coyle and Cassidy

High School

      2 Hamilton Street  |  Taunton, MA 02780  |  Phone: 508.823.6164  |  Fax: 508.823.2530

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English Department Test of Fundamentals

The English Test of Fundamentals

    Recognizing a need to assure that all of our students master the rules of Standard English usage, the English Department will administer a test of fundamentals. Students will be required to pass The English Test of Fundamentals in order to graduate. Early in the first quarter, teachers of freshmen will review the topics to be tested. Students who do not pass the test initially will have additional opportunities to pass the test, and extra help will be available. The topics to be covered on the test are as follows:

Part I. The Parts of Speech

A. Nouns

B. Pronouns

C. Verbs

D. Adjectives 

E. Adverbs

F. Prepositions

G. Conjunctions

H. Interjections

(Students will have to identify the part of speech of a word as it functions in the sentence.)

Part II. The Parts of a Sentence

A. Subjects and Predicates

             1. Simple subject

             2. Complete subject

             3. Simple predicate

             4. Complete predicate

B. Complements

             1. Predicate nominatives

             2. Predicate adjectives

             3. Direct objects

             4. Indirect objects

C. Phrases

             1. Prepositional phrases

             2. Appositive phrases

             3. Participial phrases

             4. Gerund phrases

             5. Infinitive phrases

D. Clauses

             1. Independent clauses

             2. Dependent clauses

                          a. Adjective clauses

                          b. Adverb clauses

                          c. Noun clauses

Part III. Agreement

A. Subject-verb agreement:

             1. With compound subjects

             2. With subjects that follow the verb

             3. With an intervening phrase between the subject and the verb

             4. With “either…or” and “neither…nor”

B. Pronoun-antecedent agreement

Note: This section of the test will include problems with words such as each, either, neither, one, someone, no one, nobody, everyone, everybody.

Part IV. Demon Pairs

A. Affect /effect

B. Accept/except

C. Like/as

D. It’s/ its

E. Who/whom

F. Have/of

G. Good/well

H. Than/then

I. Lay/Lie

J. Doesn’t/don’t

Part V. Sentence Completeness

A. Fragments

B. Run-ons

Part VI. Punctuation

A. Use of commas:

             1. In a series

             2. In a compound sentence

             3. After an introductory element in a sentence

             4. To set off an appositive phrase from the rest of the sentence

B. Use of apostrophes:

             1. In possessives

             2. In contractions

Note: This section of the test will include possessive adjectives in which no apostrophe would be used, such as ours, hers, his, theirs, its.

C. Use of underlining in titles

D. Use of quotation marks in titles                        

E. Use of semicolons:

             1. In compound sentences

             2. In a list of items

Part VII. Pronoun Usage

A. Nominative case

            1. Subject of a sentence

            2. Predicate nominative

B. Objective case

            1. Object of a verb

            2. Object of a preposition

C. Possessive case

            1. Use of possessive case

            2. Spelling of possessive pronouns