Plain English

Question: Which of these prefixes means "formerly"?

Answer: As a prefix, ex- means "formerly," as in "ex-wife" or "ex-president."

Question: Which of these punctuation marks can be used to join two words into a single compound word?

Answer: A hyphen is a punctuation mark much like a dash or a minus sign, but shorter in length. It is used in the formation of many compound words.

Question: Which does not pertain to verbs?

Answer: The accusative is a case, meaning it pertains to nouns. The others are verb tenses.

Question: Which word is correct in the sentence "If she _____ about his party, she would have gone"?

Answer: The past perfect form of "know" is "had known." This form puts a past event farther into the past than another verb in a sentence.

Question: Which of these refers to proper spelling?

Answer: Orthography is defined as the art of writing words with the proper letters according to standard usage.

Question: Which of these words is a preposition?

Answer: Prepositions are words, or groups of words, that introduce phrases; these phrases modify some element in a sentence. "Beneath" is one example of a preposition (though it can also be an adverb).

Question: Which phrase is correct in the sentence, "I’ll ____their house while they’re gone"?

Answer: Look after is an idiomatic English phrase that means to tend to or to take care of someone or something.

Question: How many common nouns are there in the sentence "Carlos fed his two cats"?

Answer: Cats is a common noun, while "Carlos" is a proper noun. Therefore, the sentence has one common noun.

Question: Which of these words is a conjunction?

Answer: Conjunctions are words used to link words or phrases together. "And," "but," and "although" are all conjunctions.

Question: Which of these words refers to proper pronunciation?

Answer: Orthoepy refers to the customary pronunciation used for a word in a given language.