Papers 2 and 310
Part 3
Errorcorrection(e.g. page 42)
This questionrequires you to correctmistakesin a text. You are given atextin
which thereis onemistakein most of thelines. One markis awarded per line,
whetherfor successf ullycorrectinga mistake or for recognizinga correctline and
markingit witha tick(,I).Themistakes are all of a similartype: the instructions
tell you what kindof mistakes to be looking out for.
The possible types are- one unnecessaryword.
- punctuation and spelling.
Thisis one of the quest ionsin Paper 3 that can contributemosttowards
developingyourw ritingskills. Apart from the opportunity it affordsfor workon
grammar, punct uation andspelling,it givespractice which willhelp youin
correctingyour own writing.
AdviceonansweringP art 3
1 Head the ques tionca re fu lly. Make sureyou know whatkindofmistake you' re
looki ngfor, and bowy Ollmust writ eiton youranswersheet.
2 Headth e who letex t through first.
3 Don't makeunne ce ssary 'co rrect ions' while ignoringobviousandse rious
m istakes :lookforth e hig mistakesfirst.
4 About 20% ofthe line s arecorrect.Don't forge tto mark any lineswher e yo u
cannotfindany mistake s witha tick(v").
O ll e1lI111ccessaryicord.
1 Fora wordto he anerrorin thi s que stio nitis eithergramm atically incor rect orit
doe snotfitinwiththe mea ning of the text.- T he gram mar mistakesca n include word orde randprepositions or article s where
th e re shouldn't he any.
3 T he mist ake s in me aning can include connectingwordsoreve nne gatives that
seem towor kgrammatically,hut in fact don't make sense.
4 Ineverycase, make su rethat the sentenceas a who leis correctand reads well
once th e unnecessaJ)'word has beendele ted.
Pu nctuation and. s pelling
1 Do the pun ctuationwork in thi s book(p age s 29-37). Not onlywillit he lpYOIl
withthis question,hutit will alsoimprove yourwriting.
2 The punctuationerrors inthis que stion arebasic mistakes.Look out for:- miss ingcap ita l letters.
- bracke ts or speech marksthat openbut do notclose.
- que stio nsth at arenotmark ed witha questionmark.
3 If a com ma is 'optional'(se e p age 33) you will usuallyfind th at there is a real
mistake elsewherein the line ,often a spelling mistake.
I f you have seriousp roble ms withspelling, re ad moreandstudy therulesfor
E nglish spe lling(see ·Spelling· inMichae l Swan :PracticalEllgli shUSllge,O UP).
Part 4
Wordformation(e.g .page 50)
Part 4 consistsof t wodifferenttexts, each witheightgaps. For each gap you are
given a 'promptword '. You fill t he gapby changing the prompt word so that it
fitsinto thetext.