Can you beat my score?
Submitted by Sarah D. Bunting on June 14, 2008 – 2:59 PM50 Comments
I bet you can, because I embarrassed myself on Mental Floss‘s grammar quiz. Two of the questions were phrased in such a way that I overthought them, but did know the right answer even though I got them wrong; that’s no excuse for ringing up a crappy 40 percent when I fancy myself a usage maven. Good quiz, though — I did learn a couple of things, plus their primary reference appears to be the Garner, which is rad.
See how you do. Thanks to reader Angie for the link.
Share!
Tags: our friend English
I too got 40%. Hee. But I’m drunk. Wheee.
Eh. I got 60 percent, but I disagree with them about two of the ones I got “wrong,” and I suspect you got the same ones “wrong” for the same reasons. And I guessed a lot.
60%.
I feel like disputing the adverb one, but I might lose the dispute. (I probably overthought it.) I messed up the other 3 on my own.
70%.
I called the split infinitive, and “overcorrected” fewer/less.
Still not convinced re: A’s and Bs.
60% here as well. I call bullshit on the apostrophe question, but I also learned a couple of things. Neat quiz.
Their apostrophe one is stupid. I don’t care what the LA Times is willing to do on its front page.
70%
I protest that A’s and B’s one. Pick one and stick to it, goddammit.
Oy… I only got 20%. But on the up side, I got 53% on the cheap beer slogan quiz! (All about the priorities…)
I got 60% and agreed with three of the ones marked wrong. However, I will continue to write “As and Bs” instead of “A’s and B’s,” damn it.
40%, and I edit copy for a living.
Instead of multiple choice, these should be essay questions; it would have helped my score.
I got a 50%. I just finished taking an intro grammar class for my English Sec Ed degree, and next semester, I’m taking the advanced class. I worked my ass off to get an A in that first class, and I was all like, “it doesn’t seem like there should be any grammar left! I think we covered it all! Clearly, we did not.
50%
*hangs head in shame*
I guess I won’t be telling the students in my English class that their instructor got a lousy 50% on a grammar quiz! To be honest, though, I also wanted to dispute some of the ones I got wrong, particularly the one with A’s and Bs. I can get behind the use of the apostrophe for plurals when dealing with a single letter like that; it’s the mixed usage that looks wrong, wrong, wrong to me.
40% but I don’t feel too bad because I never formally learned grammar (that’s thanks to a military education, thank you very much). That won’t really make you feel any better though. Sorry.
Sorry, but their answer for “To boldly go” is revisionist. By the rules of formal English, split infinitives are incorrect. Yes, it is true that they don’t actually impair comprehension or affect the meaning of the sentence; but the question was “is this incorrect”, not “is this incorrect even though it really does’n’t matter and only stupid reactionary jerks who probably vote Republican think that it’s incorrect”.
I’m rather surprised that they didn’t have a question about the final entry in comma-delineated lists. The test is bullshit enough that I’d have expected one.
0%.
I am going to sleep. When I wake up, I hope my sucky grammar isn’t more evident.
40%!
I take issue with the quiz asking us to chose which response is “correct”, only to say “x & y are acceptable” in the feedback. There’s a difference between “correct” and “accpetable”, isn’t there?
It’s possible that I’m just over-sensitive because my score was shithouse.
I only got 40% too. Lots of guesses going on, so I’m actually surprised I got that high of a score!
You still rock as an authority on grammar, Sars. Don’t sweat it! :-)
Granted, I’ve never said I was good at grammar, but apparently I’m a bigger idiot when it comes to the english language than I thought.
If that had been a math quiz, I’d have kicked ass.
60 percent. That usage of “hopefully” … yeccccch.
40%. I just woke up a few minutes ago, I’m using that as my excuse. “To boldly go…” Sheesh!
I’m an editor. I’m a good editor. But I’ve never heard of an “auxiliary.” And I never learned about subjunctives (all I know about them is that in French they’re a b1tch). So 30% ain’t half bad. Or at least I’ll contend that is the case.
Sorry for the double post, but a couple of the items were style issues. In the case of “A’s and B’s” versus “As and Bs” (note how “As” would be confusing if it started a sentence), a house style guide will make the selection and the editor will enforce it. The “a” versus “an” is a fairly recent change in acceptable usage. “An historic” makes no sense when the “h” is voiced, and usage has caught up with sense there. But there are plenty of people (and style guides) that don’t allow it.
I am actually proud of my 40% (would’ve been 50 but I too believe that “As and Bs” is the way to go–surely you can identify As as the plural of A when it’s followed by Bs). And I also teach English, but grammar has never been my strong suit.
The creator of the quiz, June Casagrande, wrote a fun grammar text called “Grammar Snobs are Great Big Meanies: A Guide to Language for Fun and Spite”. I’d recommend it. http://tinyurl.com/6gpu43
Yeah, I also got 40 percent. But at least two of the ones I got wrong (or “wrong,” if I’m going to be persnickety about it) would be correct under Associated Press style, which I use at work. Oh, well!
The questions seemed designed to trip us up, in several cases; I did get the infinitive question correct, for example, but there’s a difference between “is not incorrect” and “is a rule derived from Latin that should probably be retired, given that it isn’t relevant and doesn’t contribute to clarity.” In other words, yes, the split-infinitive rule should be retired…but it’s still a rule. The phrasing of that question didn’t really reflect that distinction.
Not that I’m being a sore loser or anything.
“A’s and B’s” used (long ago) to be taught as mandatory, because it would otherwise have been seen as unintelligible. In the last couple of decades we have become so accustomed (largely because of computer manuals and the like, which talk about what key to press and so on) to seeing letters stand alone that “As and Bs” is completely understandable at a glance. So I could go along with either one, but isn’t “whatever format you pick, stick to it consistently” also an important rule?
As to split infinitives, rather than “should probably be retired,” I would say “WAS retired decades ago” (doesn’t the quizmaster say that the 14 usages guides she consulted all supported splitting?). What will it take to declare the “rule” officially retired? It not only doesn’t contribute to clarity, it sometimes diminishes it, when its use forces a modifier to be misplaced. I can’t see a single point in its favor.
By contrast, that use of “hopefully,” though relatively new (“relatively” as in 50 years old), creates no ambiguities and contributes a succinct phrasing that didn’t exist before. Likewise “contact” as a verb. So I endorse both of them. (On the other hand, “impact” as a verb doesn’t do anything that “affect” doesn’t, so I vote against it.)
I got 40% too, but I disagree so strongly with the question about apostrophe use that I dismiss the whole thing. So there!
I was annoyed a bit by the “To boldly go…” question. I assumed it was grammatically incorrect because it is an incomplete clause — there’s no subject. If it said “Our missions is to boldly go…” I’d have been fine with it. But if an essay read just “To boldly go…” I’d mark it off.
The A’s and Bs thing was totally a style issue! Stupid LA Times!
….and this is what I get for responding after a big fathers’ day dinner. I meant to write “mission” and not “missions.” Oh well.
Eh, 10% here, and that was a lucky guess. But I got 100% on the “Whose Handwriting” quiz, which I think we can all agree is of far greater practical use.
40%. And I agree with alivicwil that there’s a difference between “correct” and “acceptable.” At least three of those questions I would have got wrong anyway, but I contend that the others just fell on the wrong side of the correct/acceptable fence.
I got 80%. One of the correct answers was a wild guess, but I’m pretty sore about missing the apostrophe question, so it evens out.
I mean, I can get behind “A’s and B’s” or “As and Bs,” but not that mixed shit. Fuck off, LA Times.
30% for this professional managing editor with three degrees from Cambridge. *sigh*
What Rinaldo said on all counts. I do rewrite the “hopefully” constructions, though, because that is something persnickety readers will write in about. (Or–about which persnickety readers will write in. Or–about which persnickety readers will write to the editor.)
Yeah, I think a lot of it is really about what “correct” means. There’s no single “correct” answer to a lot of these questions. I think I answered sort of like “correct” means “marked majority of modern sources,” which will get you a different answer on the apostrophes and some of the other stuff than using the standard where “correct” means “some people do it like this.” Weirdly, with the split infinitives, the quiz seems to apply my standard, while on the other questions, it doesn’t. I guarantee you that there are more people who still don’t split infinitives than there are writing “A’s and Bs.”
I have to say, I was disappointed in that book (the “Big Meanies” book), so I’m not surprised to find that I thought the quiz was less than satisfying as well.
40%. Apparently a youth spent with Warriner’s led me to ruin.
I will write “That’ll learn me” and “brung” and “hasta la bye-bye” in a letter of application for my dream job before I countenance “A’s and Bs.”
I also take pride in being able to re-phrase those gnarly freakshow sentences. If the sentence is so tortured that the reader starts wondering about the grammar, you’ve lost, correct or not. (Unless you’re going for a meta thing, of course, which, as a GenX-er, I find hard to avoid.)
80% –and one of my misses was that stupid “A’s and Bs” question (I guess what’s tripping us all up is that it’s a style error even if it isn’t grammatically wrong). Then again, that miss evens out for my correctly guessing the modal question when I didn’t even know the term.
I feel pretty good about my 33% considering I guessed on some of them. And I’m ‘very glad to see others were as irritated by As, Bs, and boldly as I was.
40%, same as Sars and better than the mental floss average (28% at last check). Good enough for me. BTW, I read the L.A. Times daily, and I call b.s. on “A’s and Bs” as well.
Oy. 30%. And me with my Latin degree. I got the subjunctive question wrong! Do you have any idea how many hours I slogged over the subjunctive? If I were to miss a question on the subjunctive, I would be very embarrassed.
I got 40% too. But 75% on the match the handwriting quiz! (I mixed up Ted Bundy and Bill Clinton. Heh.) I also got 87% on the state license plates quiz, and I was able to name all the state capitals in less than ten minutes. I’ll also be letting my boss know I’ll be getting 35% less work done today than expected, due to infectious online quiz taking disease.
Adding my voice to the growing chorus about A’s and Bs. To quote Ms. Bunting in the classic essay “Sincerely Your’s”, “Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Ignorant. Ignorant. Ignorant.”
Gah! 10%! Clearly I need to get my hands on a copy of Garner and start studying.
I guess lawyers don’t really need to know grammar, just the law. (Sorry Linda.)
60%, and I should have done better, as one who prides himself on his grammatical prowess. I overthought some things, too. As, uh, I do. The apostrophe question is wrong, bad, and evil: “A’s and B’s” may be acceptable, but how can *both* “As and B’s” be correct? That’s just bonkers-making. I’m with the team on the whole “Hopefully,” question, too. Blech.
I think this may be the most ridiculous grammar quiz I have ever taken, and y’all? I have a JOURNALISM degree. I know from ridiculous grammar quizzes.
I would like to SMASHY-SMASH the person who first wrote “A’s and Bs.” Holy hell. (Also, I scored 60%. Suck it, mental floss meanies.)
10% here, and I have Garner. I protest “To boldly go…” and “A’s and Bs,” but, yeah, I sucked.
Got 80% (yay!), and was probably lucky. But I got dinged on the “As and Bs” bit, and I. too, think their line is crap. In fact, by their reasoning, the “both apostrophes” case is still wrong, because there’s no word “Bs”. There -is- an abbreviation “B.S.”, which is closely related to that question …
Hee. 20%. I haven’t taken English since high school, and even then we didn’t study grammar much. I never learned the terminology for things. Which is why it’s so funny that one of my two right answers was about modal auxiliaries, which I have never even heard of before…