I'm halfway from finishing marking Paper 1. Here, I will compile some of the common mistakes made by my students in their essays.
1. Writing a sentence too long.
Lastly, thank you to all because success the speech today because you all hear the speech because it was boring.
This sentence consists of 4 basic sentences, and all the sentences are connected by the word 'because'. It is better for the student to write shorter sentences to minimize grammatical and structural mistakes. The above sentence could be written "Lastly, thank you to all. Today's speech is a success. You all listened to it even though it was boring."
2. Using wrong connectors.
I think the maintaining good discipline at the school is very important. However, it also can make (a student) become good forever.
Connectors add information, introduce a similar idea, give an opposite idea, and introduce the result. Using wrong connectors will disrupt the flow between sentences. The word 'However' in the second sentence above is wrongly used. It denotes that the idea in the sentence is a complete opposite from the first, although idea of making a student good is stressing the first idea of maintaining good discipline. Thus, the appropriate connector should be 'Moreover' as in this correction "I think maintaining good discipline at the school is very important. Moreover, it can also make a student to become a good person."
3. Confusion in placing the adjectives.
The problem discipline is the nail long, the hair long and other.
Adjectives are words to describe a noun, and they are always put before a noun they are describing. In the above sentence, the adjectives are put after the nouns. The students probably confused with Malay language which put the adjectives after the nouns - nail long (kuku panjang), hair long (rambut panjang). Even 'problem discipline' (masalah disiplin) is a confusion. The sentence should be correctly written as "The (examples of) disciplinary problems are long nails and long hair."
4. No finite verb in a complete sentence.
I the president of the Civics Club.
The golden rule is that in a complete sentence, there should be a finite verb. There is no finite verb in the above sentence. I (a pronoun), the (an article), president (a noun), of (a preposition), the (an article), Civics (an adjective), Club (a noun). The correct sentence is "I am the president of the Civics Club."
5. Disagreement between the subjects and its verbs.
We arrives at the market. I is very excited.
This is the most common mistakes of all. No matter how many lessons stressed on this particular grammatical problem, the students never get it right. They are still confused where to put 's' and where not to put 's'. Singular and plural are the same to them. The obvious correction for the above sentence is "We arrive at the market. I am very excited."
1. Writing a sentence too long.
Lastly, thank you to all because success the speech today because you all hear the speech because it was boring.
This sentence consists of 4 basic sentences, and all the sentences are connected by the word 'because'. It is better for the student to write shorter sentences to minimize grammatical and structural mistakes. The above sentence could be written "Lastly, thank you to all. Today's speech is a success. You all listened to it even though it was boring."
2. Using wrong connectors.
I think the maintaining good discipline at the school is very important. However, it also can make (a student) become good forever.
Connectors add information, introduce a similar idea, give an opposite idea, and introduce the result. Using wrong connectors will disrupt the flow between sentences. The word 'However' in the second sentence above is wrongly used. It denotes that the idea in the sentence is a complete opposite from the first, although idea of making a student good is stressing the first idea of maintaining good discipline. Thus, the appropriate connector should be 'Moreover' as in this correction "I think maintaining good discipline at the school is very important. Moreover, it can also make a student to become a good person."
3. Confusion in placing the adjectives.
The problem discipline is the nail long, the hair long and other.
Adjectives are words to describe a noun, and they are always put before a noun they are describing. In the above sentence, the adjectives are put after the nouns. The students probably confused with Malay language which put the adjectives after the nouns - nail long (kuku panjang), hair long (rambut panjang). Even 'problem discipline' (masalah disiplin) is a confusion. The sentence should be correctly written as "The (examples of) disciplinary problems are long nails and long hair."
4. No finite verb in a complete sentence.
I the president of the Civics Club.
The golden rule is that in a complete sentence, there should be a finite verb. There is no finite verb in the above sentence. I (a pronoun), the (an article), president (a noun), of (a preposition), the (an article), Civics (an adjective), Club (a noun). The correct sentence is "I am the president of the Civics Club."
5. Disagreement between the subjects and its verbs.
We arrives at the market. I is very excited.
This is the most common mistakes of all. No matter how many lessons stressed on this particular grammatical problem, the students never get it right. They are still confused where to put 's' and where not to put 's'. Singular and plural are the same to them. The obvious correction for the above sentence is "We arrive at the market. I am very excited."
