Posted on 05/15/2003 4:07:50 PM PDT by ZinGirl
Md. Teacher Finds Botched PSAT Question
Student Test Scores Increased Due To Erroneous Question
POSTED: 9:00 p.m. EDT May 14, 2003
The nation's largest testing company has increased the PSAT scores of nearly 500,000 high school juniors after the company concluded it was wrong about the correct answer to a grammar question posed on the exam last October.
Students were asked if anything was grammatically wrong with the following sentence: "Toni Morrison's genius enables her to create novels that arise from and express the injustices African-Americans have endured."
The correct choice on the multiple choice exam was originally listed as "no error" by the Educational Testing Service of Princeton, N.J., which administers the PSAT and SAT for the College Board. The PSAT is aimed at helping juniors prepare for the SAT college entrance exam in their senior year.
Maryland high school journalism teacher Kevin Keegan spotted the botched question in late January.
He informed ETS that the sentence was incorrect because the pronoun in the sentence -- "her" -- was used improperly. Keegan said pronouns should only refer to nouns and in this case Morrison's name is used as an adjective.
The ETS said a committee of experts signed off on the question, which was posed on the exam given Oct. 15 to 1.8 million juniors.
In letters and telephone calls, Keegan persevered.
From experience, he knew that the loss of one or two points on the PSAT could disqualify a junior from becoming a National Merit commended student or a National Merit semifinalist. National Merit academic honors are determined by PSAT scores.
"I have taught dozens of kids over the years who have missed those two cutoffs by one point or one question," he said.
Based on a review by three experts, ETS this month informed Keegan and the students that the sentence would not be counted in the scoring. As a result, the scores of 480,000 students will rise.
Lee Jones, a College Board vice president, said the National Merit Scholarship Program has also agreed to adjust its limits.
"He was persistent in his point and we appreciate that," Jones said of Keegan. "And, he turned out to be correct."
A few years ago the race hustlers were hollering about the use of the word "regatta" in an SAT question. They said it was racist. Yet this pandering, politically correct question featuring an over-rated black author is fine and dandy. Heaven forfend whites should complain.
(OK, I misused niggardly a little. It's still funny.)
In "Ebonics", not only is it not an error, it be Shakespeare.
The thing that is driving me crazy now is the chronic misuse of "I", "me", "he", "she", etc. following prepositions, e.g., "to her and I". Americans use English like some pianists play improv jazz--any which way it comes out.
And to think that some of these media grammar-dunces call our President "a stupid verbal klutz who can hardly get a sentence out".
Good point. Not sure such a construct would make sense with that particular sentence, but similar structures certainly work:
Bob sometimes gets stressed. Chopin's music helps him relax.Without the first sentence, the pronoun in the second would clearly refer to Chopin. With the first sentence, though, it clearly refers to Bob.
No better. Any grammarians who can't figure out to whom the pronoun "him" refers in the first sentence will be equally clueless about the pronoun "he" in the second.
We hear and understand based on context and past speaking patterns. The rule is, you should be able to strip a sentence down to its bare mininum and it still make sense. The ambiguity is: Who is Tom's job requiring to travel? We can't assume it's Tom (although we do when we hear it spoken).
Nope, not liberals. They inject it everywhere and into everything. Tis how brainwashing works, and it has served them well. Their Committee Against Word Waste probably came up with it.
MM
An African-American is someone who is originally from Africa and who is now an American, like Charlize Theron for example.
You could come to that conclusion even with the context clues, which is exactly why the sentence is incorrect.
That is not clear and it is incorrect.
Free grammar lesson about a subject many people find confusing [and I did until I read the rules that clear things up]
The relative pronoun "that" is used to limit the scope of something else. The relative pronoun "which" is used to add detail but not limit scope.
Consider the sentence:
The outbuilding ___ is ten feet from Joe's house [,] is painted orange.In deciding whether to insert , «which» or «that», you should ask yourself this question: if the subordinate clause were stricken, would the reader know what outbuilding was being discussed? If the answer to that question is yes, the proper relative pronoun is «which» [which requires commas to separate its subordinate clause]. If the answer is no, then the proper relative pronoun is «that».
Example #1:
This block has twelve houses and a small outbuilding. The outbuilding, which is ten feet from Joe's house, is painted orange.Here it's obvious what outbuilding is being referred to. It's the "small outbuilding" referred to in the previous paragraph, and it's the only one on the block. The subordinate clause informs the reader of the location of the building.
Example #2
The block has twelve houses and fifteen outbuildings, most of which are brown. The outbuilding that is ten feet from Joe's house is painted orange.Here, were it not for the subordinate clause, it would be unclear which outbuilding was being referred to(*). The subordinate clause exists not to tell the reader the location of an outbuilding, but rather provides a means by which a reader who knows where the outbuildings are located can tell which one is orange.
(*) I know some 18th-century grammarians decided ending sentences with prepositions was evil. I don't care. The passive voice is less verbose and clearer than the active voice "...it would be unclear to which outbuilding the word 'outbuilding' in the second sentence was referring", and "refer" is a more accurate verb than "discuss". Trailing prepositions were good enough for Shakespeare, and they're good enough for me.
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