SECTION P: Punctuation

Your Full Name:
*Required

Email Address:
*Required

1. Select the sentence that contains a comma error:

In the morning, I went to class.
I went to class in the morning.
When I went to class in the morning I was ready for the test.

2. Select the sentence that contains a comma error:

In the room, there were dogs, cats, and some small rabbits.
He was very tall very dark and very fat.
The dirty, new, brown car stood at the curb in front of them.

3. Select the sentence that contains a comma error:

The address was clearly 1234, Sleepy Hollow Lane, North Bay, Ontario.
On 30 March 2001, spring finally arrived in Thunder Bay.
The person who headed the team was Serenna Czanski, Ph.D.

4. Select the sentence that contains a comma error:

The chalet that had the biggest logs in its walls was by far the best.
Bernard’s car which was brown had been parked by the tree.
The woman who was best prepared for the hike was selected to lead the way.

5. Select the sentence that contains a comma error:

A craft, a trim catamaran, was waiting by the dock.
The mining company, a company aware of the risks in the industry, was heavily involved in safety programs.
Marketing, the art of selling goods to people is more complex today than it was ten years ago.

---

6. Select the sentence that contains a comma error:

John’s boat, which was blue, was hard to spot on the lake.
The largest tree which was right next the house gave the house shade on hot summer days.
The house that was at the end of the block was built on the site of an old barn.

---

7. Select the sentence that contains a comma error:

Blackflies however make fishing in late June difficult.
Their minds, however, were made up that they were going to go to the river to fish.
The test was difficult; however, the class understood the material.

8. Select the sentence that contains a comma error:

“The sky is falling,” cried Chicken Little.
Prit, how did you know which bus to take?
It is a long way to go for an ice cream isn't it?

9. Select the sentence that contains a comma error:

The swimmer, was on his way to the gym when he remembered that he had forgotten his goggles.
Today the wind is strong, and tomorrow the weather office is predicting rain.
The journey, which is long and difficult, is worth the effort.

10. Select the sentence that contains a comma error:

The noisy, turbulent, crowded, city looked to be all she had wanted it to be.
Across the broad, large, yellow field, the barn shone in the sunshine.
The quick, brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.

11. Select the sentence that contains a comma error:

The crowd agitated by the conflict on the field, rose to its feet.
Going to the field, the farmer noticed for the first time how the grain had suffered from the hail.
In the morning, the eastern sky turned red, then pink.

12. Select the sentence that contains a comma error:

While we knew that the tide had gone out early in the morning, we did not know when it would turn.
At the beginning of October the maple trees beside the house turned a brilliant orange.
We realized that the only way to find the answer to the puzzle was to review all the clues.

13. Select the sentence that contains a comma error:

The light-blue, rough material contrasted with the smooth, light, airy silk.
Along the edge of the lake, the path wound its way through the tall, dark trees.
The sleek, dark, car was in direct contrast to the heavy-set boxy appearance of the SUV.

14. Select the sentence that contains a comma error:

The movie theatre loomed up before us, next to the cow pasture.
The inside of the multiplex theatre was cluttered with video games, vending machines, and a large central snack bar that sold very expensive popcorn.
The movies were all similar; they catered to Hollywood’s vision of the average movie fan: a person who wants to escape from day-to-day reality.

15. Select the sentence that contains a comma error:

Once we were out of the building, our sense of where we were returned to us.
The field beside the theatre was silent now, and in the dark it was hard to see if the cattle were still there.
It was strange to see a large parking lot full of children, teenagers and adults all making their way out of the cinema toward the sea of cars, trucks and vans.

The Semicolon and the Colon

16. Select the sentence that contains a semicolon or colon error:

Many actors in television find themselves unemployed after acting in a television series; producers think that audiences so strongly identify actors with characters they play that they are not accepted in other roles.
There are many actors who take on similar small roles in different series; believing that similar roles will build them a role as a character actor.
The hard thing for most to understand is that changes in taste; changes in programming, which affect the roles available for actors; and changes in writers affect how long any character actor can find gainful employment playing similar roles.

17. Select the sentence that contains a semicolon or colon error:

The winners of the free television are: Tom Yee, Mary Whiteside, and Carlos Morales.
There is only one item you should not forget when you travel by air: your ticket.
Blake asserts his stance on how the church has corrupted religion in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell: “Till a system was formed, which some took advantage of, &enslav’d the vulgar by attempting to realize or abstract the mental deities from their objects: thus began Priesthood.”

18. Select the sentence that contains a semicolon or colon error:

The speaker turned to his audience and answered its question with one word: no.
Writing-on-Stone Provincial Park, in southeastern Alberta, has petroglyphs that are believed to be: Shoshoni, Assiniboine and Gros Ventre.
There is one expression that everyone remembers from The Wizard of Oz: “There’s no place like home.”

19. Select the sentence that contains a semicolon or colon error:

The worst problem you can have while trying to write an essay is writer’s block; the second-worst problem you can have is too much information.
The only thing worse than either of those two problems is not having enough time to complete the assignment; no one likes to stay up all night to finish an assignment.
There are many other small problems that can affect your writing; and cause you to struggle.

20. Select the sentence that contains a semicolon or colon error:

The book that you should read is called The Twentieth Century: A Century of Conflict.
The way I see it, you should do one thing; go for a good holiday.
The best route for you to take depends on whether or not you want to get there quickly or enjoy the trip; I always like to enjoy the trip.

---

 

21. Select the sentence that contains a semicolon or colon error:

There are many different political views; that is what makes politics so interesting.
Sally, who was always late, Ruth, who was always early and Solveigh, who was never worried about either of her two friends and their problems with time, went travelling together.
The semicolon is confusing to many writers; they avoid it because they do not know the simple rules governing its use.

The Slash, Dash, Parentheses, Brackets, and Ellipses

22. Select the sentence that contains a slash, dash, parentheses, brackets, or ellipsis error:

When they examined the records, they found that two-thirds of the population had taken driver training.
She was happy to assume the combined task of being owner/manager.
Though she was the company’s president/ CEO, she took no responsibility for its dwindling profits.

23. Select the sentence that contains a slash, dash, parentheses, brackets, or ellipsis error:

The element you should be most aware of—the one that determines whether you fail or succeed—is your thesis statement.
The best indicator of a product’s future success—whether it sells well—will determine if it is retained by our marketing team.
Many of the problems with fisheries—and logging, for that matter—have to do with how well the ecological system that the industry depends on has been cared for.

24. The following three sentences are formatted in MLA style. Select the sentence that contains a slash, dash, parentheses, brackets, or ellipsis error:

Buitenhuis says of E.J. Pratt that it is “clear that Pratt’s subject was limited by [. . .] the somewhat rigid intellectual framework within which he worked” (xxvii).1
He also suggests that Pratt had not embraced modernism, as “Pratt remained a contemporary of Tennyson and Thomas Hardy [. . . ]. The revolt in poetic diction signalled by the publication of Gerard Manley Hopkins’ work [. . .] left no imprint on Pratt’s work (xxviii).
In creating the characters in his poetry, Pratt was different from his contemporaries: At a time when the anti-heroic was succeeding the un-heroic . . . , Pratt was able to forge and maintain a vision of collective heroism . . . (xxix).

25. The following three sentences do not follow MLA conventions. Select the sentence that contains a slash, dash, parentheses, brackets, or ellipsis error.

In talking of the class system in Canada, Joy Kogawa noted that “the English class system is really a fierce thing. . . . I . . . always felt in Canada as one of those people that are to be condescended to . . . As I was growing up, it was particularly severe. . . .1
In Obasan, this sense of being the outsider is clearly stated by Miss Nakane, who remarks, “People assume . . . that I’m a foreigner” (7).
In Obasan, the depth of Kogawa’s journey to explore the problems that World War II caused for Canadians whose ancestors came from Japan even evokes the bombing of Hiroshima. But, through Stephen, Kogawa is able to add another layer of complexity to the novel as he states near the end of the book, “We are powerless to forgive unless we first are forgiven. . . . But no person, no people is innocent. Therefore we must forgive one another” (240).

26. Select the sentence that contains a slash, dash, parentheses, brackets, or ellipsis error:

In her whimsical “Poem about Nothing,” Lorna Crozier starts off with the comment “Zero is the one we didn’t understand / at school. Multiplied by anything / it remained nothing” (168).
Crozier makes her statement more profound though by observing, “When the Cree chiefs/signed the treaties on the plains/they wrote X.” By doing this, she is moving from whimsy into social commentary as she then adds, “In English, X equals zero” (169).
As Crozier points out, zero is threatening, for, “from the bottom of a dry well / zero is what [a person sees] / the terrible blue of it” (168).

Fill in the blank

27. Commas are used to set off____________ elements in a sentence.

essential
nonessential

28. The two main uses of commas are to ______ separate give pauses and to ______ set off break up long passages

29. The major use of the semicolon is between ____

long complex elements
closely related independent clauses

30. The colon is used after _____________before a list, a quotation, or a summary.

an independent clause
a dependent clause

31. To show possession when you have a singular noun not ending in “s,” you _________

add an apostrophe
add an apostrophe and an “s”

32. When you omit a word or words from a quotation you use__________to show the omission

an ellipsis
a dash

33. If you add material to a quotation to clarify the intent of the quotation or to make it fit grammatically into a sentence you are writing, you put the added words in _________.

parentheses
brackets

34. You can use _________to represent a dash in typescript.

a series of dots
two hyphens

35. When you use a dash to introduce a clause, phrase, or word that you want to emphasize there is _______space between the dash and the words that it separates.

no
a

36. Parentheses are used to set off material that is__________.

of secondary importance
of primary importance

37. When you use a slash to separate two lines of poetry in a short quotation, there is___________ a space no space between the last word of the first line of poetry and the slash, and__________ a space no space between the slash and the first word of the next line of poetry.

 

38. The possessive form of “it” is____________.

it’s
its

39. The possessive form of students is __________.

students’
students’s

40. The possessive form of student is___________.

students’
student’s

41. The possessive form of Jones is _________ Jones' Jones's and the possessive form of Joneses is ________. Joneses' Joneses's

True or false

Directions: Answer whether the following statements are true or false:

42. Commas can be used to break up a sentence whenever you think it is getting too long.

true
false

43. You can separate two independent clauses with a comma by itself.

true
false

44. If you have a parallel series of phrases or clauses and one or more of the individual phrases or clauses uses a comma, you separate the phrases or clauses from one another with a semicolon.

true
false

45. You cannot use a semicolon to separate two independent clauses.

true
false

 

46. The colon always introduces a quotation.

true
false

47. You can use a colon after the verb “to be” (is, are, was, were).

true
false

48. The title and subtitle of a book are separated by a colon.

true
false

49. In a memo, the subject line and attention line use a colon.

true
false

50. Single quotation marks are used to indicate a quotation and double quotation marks are used to indicate a quotation within a quotation.

true
false

51. Indirect as well as direct quotations are enclosed in quotation marks.

true
false

52. Short quotations are set off from the text of an essay by quotation marks.

true
false

53. You can use either quotation marks or italics to set off words that you are defining or discussing.

true
false

54. Commas and periods are placed inside quotation marks.

true
false

55. Colons and semicolons are placed inside quotation marks.

true
false

56. A question mark is always placed outside of quotation marks.

true
false