Q&A - PSLE English

[Verysuperkiasu]

ridcully:

Verysuperkiasu:

Below is a synthesis & Transformation question:


Qn : The principal gave out the prize after making a speech.
Before the principal........

Is it ok to say :
Before the principal gave out the prize, he had made a speech.

Keep to the past simple:

Before the principal gave out the prize, he made a speech.

It is true that the past perfect ['had made'] is often used to say that one event occurred earlier than another. However, the conjunction 'before' captures this notion.

Rgds
R

Thanks so much for the clarification But would the child be marked wrong if he used 'had' - i mean is it grammatically wrong?

[ridcully]

Verysuperkiasu:

Thanks so much for the clarification But would the child be marked wrong if he used 'had' - i mean is it grammatically wrong?

Yes, it is grammatically wrong because we are talking about completed events. The child should be marked wrong.


The past perfect is used with 'before' for non-completion of an action:

Before Uncle Ridcully had finished his explanation, the quick-footed pupil grabbed the prize from the principal.

Rgds
R

[Verysuperkiasu]

ridcully:

Verysuperkiasu:

Thanks so much for the clarification But would the child be marked wrong if he used 'had' - i mean is it grammatically wrong?

Yes, it is grammatically wrong because we are talking about completed events. The child should be marked wrong.


The past perfect is used with 'before' for non-completion of an action:

Before Uncle Ridcully had finished his explanation, the quick-footed pupil grabbed the prize from the principal.

Rgds
R

Thank you for the above reply. I have another question on phrasal verbs.

Do you say 'I cannot hear above the noise' or 'I cannot hear over the noise'?

Tried to find on google but seemed both are acceptable? But the MCQ has both 'over' and 'above' in the answers.

[ridcully]

Verysuperkiasu:

Do you say 'I cannot hear above the noise' or 'I cannot hear over the noise'?

Use 'above'.


I have never heard of google...

Rgds
R

[Verysuperkiasu]

ridcully:

Verysuperkiasu:

Do you say 'I cannot hear above the noise' or 'I cannot hear over the noise'?

Use 'above'.


I have never heard of google...

Rgds
R

Thank you once again. Sigh.... ds gave all the wrong answers in his Eng prelim yesterday.

BTW - 'google' I meant the search engine?

[ridcully]

Verysuperkiasu:

BTW - 'google' I meant the search engine?

I know. I was joking with the moral: Don't rely on Google!


Stay cheerful. I'm sure your son won't do too badly.

:salute:

[Verysuperkiasu]

ridcully:

Verysuperkiasu:

BTW - 'google' I meant the search engine?

I know. I was joking with the moral: Don't rely on Google!


Stay cheerful. I'm sure your son won't do too badly.

:salute:

Oh.... no wonder... i'm sure everyone's heard of google!

I hope so too (that my son won't do too badly)

[Mdm Koh]

Google is useful for getting answers quickly. You just have to make sure that you check the sites which are more credible, for example, websites with \"edu\" in the URLs. These are school or university websites, so the information is more likely to be accurate.

[Verysuperkiasu]

Mdm Koh:

Google is useful for getting answers quickly. You just have to make sure that you check the sites which are more credible, for example, websites with \"edu\" in the URLs. These are school or university websites, so the information is more likely to be accurate.

Yes, u r right.

[Verysuperkiasu]

I came across a sentence in a vocab cloze passage.


'I hastened to assist my uncle....'
supposed to replace the word 'hastened' with one of the following;

urge, quicken, attempted, moved

Most of the students would choose 'quicken', as the two words have the same meaning. But if u were to replace the word, it can't really fit as 'quicken' is a transitive verb means it needs to be followed by an object, such as quicken your footsteps, quicken your pace, etc. But in the above sentence, after the word is 'to assist' which is not an object.

Can someone pls enlighten me???