Mandylubug Posted May 17, 2013 Share Posted May 17, 2013 My boys are doing the CAT etest today. My one son scored poorly on the punctuation part and I just had to walk away. Instead of answer what the CORRECT mark should be he marked what was wrong and where. I read the directions to him one more time and walked away. Needless to say, even though he does well with punctuation he didn't do well on that part of the test. However, he scored REALLY high in Usage and Structure. I can't figure out what that is exactly. Is that having to do with parts of speech such as nouns, verbs, etc?! He scored lower on Mechanics and spelling. Anyway, if anyone could assist me in the difference of mechanics and usage and structure I would appreciate it :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lori D. Posted May 17, 2013 Share Posted May 17, 2013 My boys are doing the CAT etest today. My one son scored poorly on the punctuation part and I just had to walk away. Instead of answer what the CORRECT mark should be he marked what was wrong and where. I read the directions to him one more time and walked away. Needless to say, even though he does well with punctuation he didn't do well on that part of the test. However, he scored REALLY high in Usage and Structure. I can't figure out what that is exactly. Is that having to do with parts of speech such as nouns, verbs, etc?! He scored lower on Mechanics and spelling. Anyway, if anyone could assist me in the difference of mechanics and usage and structure I would appreciate it :) I believe grammar mechanics would be punctuation and capitalization, while grammar usage and structure would be things like subject/verb agreement, correct verb tense, correct use of comparatives (ex: good, better, best), correct sentence structure (placement of words), etc. This Prentice Hall handbook has a slightly different breakdown for their diagnostic test of the use of English: - "grammar" includes correct use of the parts of speech, including verb tense, possessives, irregular verbs, subject-verb agreement, comparatives, negatives, sentence fragments, and misplaced modifiers - "punctuation" includes correct use of punctuation marks - "mechanics" includes correct use of: capitalization; underscores and italics; abbreviations; numbers; and word division (hyphenation) - "vocabulary" includes homophones that are confused, frequently misused words, frequently misspelled words, and correct use of transitional words Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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