EngQuizzitive-23 (grammar) : Quiz

EngQuizzitive-23 (grammar) : Answers

Modifiers : Misplaced and Dangling

Adjective is a word that tells something more about a noun and an adverb tells something more about a verb.Since the add meaning to the word they are also called as modifiers.
There are two errors related to modifiers that any CAT/CET aspirant should be aware of :

• Misplaced Modifier
• Dangling Modifier

When an adjective or an adverb is not placed near the noun or the verb it modifies it alters the meaning of the sentence and would lead to an error of Misplaced modifier.
eg.John told me he wanted to marry me often.(Incorrect)
    John often told me he wanted to marry me. (Correct)

When a subject is missing in a sentence the sentence is incomplete in meaning;it is dangling and hence known as an error of a Dangling modifier.
eg. While talking on the phone the doorbell rang. (Incorrect)
      While I was talking on the phone the doorbell rang. (Correct)

Answers

1. The last three pages of this book are missing. [Misplaced modifiers]
2. The girl is the daughter of the Pricipal who laughed. [correct]
3. She wrote the summary of the poem neatly. [Misplaced modifier]
4. He was fortunately not hurt in the accident. [Misplaced modifier]
5. John sang melodiously at the concert yesterday. [royal order of adverbs : it is always manner followed by place and time] 

 Needless to say any queries on modifiers please post it in the comments section of this post.

EngQuizzitive -22 (vocab):Quiz

EngQuizzitive -22 (vocab):Answers

Idioms are phrases grammatically.They are different from phrases coz they have implied meanings unlike phrases which have literal meanings.

Idioms can be classified on the bases of their origin.Some of the types are as follows:

• idioms derived from animals (a dog's life,a white elephant,black sheep)
• colour idioms (once in a blue moon,tickled pink,black and white)
• number idioms (forty winks,back to square one)
• Idioms derived from literature (catch-22,hamletian dilemma,jekyll and hyde)
• idioms derived from mythology (pandora's box,trojan horse)
• fruit idioms (apple of discord)

Answers :

1. He worried that he was in a Catch-22 situation because no one was willing to employ him without experience.The meaning of Catch-22 is where conflicting rules render an outcome impossible
2. Saroj has a bee in her bonnet about eating onlu healthy foods.Meaning of bee in her bonnet :be obsessed about
3. The Indo-US nuclear deal appears to have set the cat among the pigeons in the media.The idiom cat among the pigeons means: cause apprehension and confusion
4. Even at the age of 98,he was as fit as a fiddle.The idiom fit as a fiddle means: healthy
5. He kept everyone guessing about the ace up his sleeve.The idiom ace up his sleeve means : a special advantage that no one knows about

EngQuizzitive-21 (grammar):Quiz

EngQuizzitive-21 (grammar) : Answers

Topic : Adjectives

Etymology : ad(to) + ject (throw) + ive [literally means a word thrown at a noun]
Def: Adjective is a word that tells something more about a noun hence they are also called as modifiers.

There are three errors related to adjectives that are evaluated in CAT:

• Modifiers (misplaced/dangling)
• Misused adjectives
• Degrees of comparison

The next two quizzes would help create a template for modifiers and degrees of comparison.

This quiz was based on a few misused adjectives.

Answers

1. A little/little is known about the author of this book.[little means not many and hence has a negative connotation while a little means some and has a positive connotation;so depending on the meaning to be conveyed both can be used]
2. There are fewer tourists visiting this place every year.[few is used with countable nouns while less is used with uncountable nouns;since number of tourists can be counted we would use fewer]
3. My sister is elder to me by six years.[older can be used for both animate and inanimate objects and takes a than in the comparative degree but elder is used only for animate and preferably among family members and takes a to in the comparative degree]
4.  I have some money which I am planning to invest in the stock market.[some is used with uncountable nouns while few is used with countable nouns]
5. He is a fairly intelligent person.[fairly is an adverb and used with positive adjectives and rather is an adverb which would be used with negative adjectives]

EngQuizzitive - 20 (vocab:roots) : Quiz

Links for downloading online books ......

Hello people,

It has almost been  10 weeks that I have been mailing EngQuizzitive to all the students.It has been fun creating these quizzes as well as answering all the comments posted by you guys on the blog.I had never thought when I started this initiative that these quizzes would become popular and would be liked by a lot of people.I hope this enthusiasm continues till CET :)

To help you further in your preparation for CAT, I would be posting any links from where you guys could download free e-books or other relevant material,though this would solely depend upon the contribution made by students.

Therefore I urge you guys to post any links which would help people download e-books in the comments section of this post.

To begin with :

a link for downloading the e-book Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown as mailed by Padmini Agarwal :

http://our-free-ebooks.blogspot.com/search/label/Dan%20Brown
http://our-free-ebooks.blogspot.com/search/label/The%20Da%20Vinci%20Code

Another link for online reading posted by Priyanka : http://www.weread.com/
Link for theme based articles : http://www.magportal.com/
Link for Alvin Tofler's Future Shock posted by Padmini Agarwal : http://www.amazon.com/Future-Shock-Alvin-Toffler/dp/0553277375
 
Hope you guys would share information with me and the other students who use this blog regularly.
 
All the best !!!!!

Hey guys let's bell the CAT in the next 2 months :) ....I'm sure we can with a lil more effort

'

Hope this helps :)

EngQuizzitive - 20 (vocab:roots) : Answers

This quiz was based on roots related to the cosmos.The following roots were covered in the quiz:

• sol : one [solace,solitude,solittaire,soliloquy];the root sol also refers to sun [solar,parasol] {there is one more root for the sun : helio]
• loqu : speak [loquacious,grandiloquent,magniloquent,eloquent,obloquy]
• logue : speak [monologue,dialogue,prologue,epilogue]
• geo : the earth [geology,geometry,geography,apogee,perigee]
• apo (prefix) : apogee,apostate
• melan : black bile [melanin,melodrama,melancholy]
• lun : the moon [lunar,lunatic]
• astro : star [astrology,astronaut,astronomy,asterisk]
• naut : travel [nautical,nausea,ad nauseam]

Answers

1. The root sol means sun as in the word solar,umbrasol,parasol.So can you guess the meaning of the word soliloquy? [ the root 'sol' has two meanings : sun/one ; in this sentence the clue was the root 'loqu' meaning speak]
2. Geo the root for our planet comes from the greek goddess Gaea.Can you guess the meaning of the word apogee? Hint" the prefix apo means away. [the farthest point from the earth {plz note there is a difference between the earth and earth,the former means planet while the latter means soil}]
3. The word saturnine comes from the planet Saturn.In astrology Saturn stands for a gloomy mode.From this guess the meaning of the word saturnine? [both 1 and 2;maudlin is alteration of (Mary) Magdalene, who was frequently depicted as a tearful penitent]
4. The root for the moon in Latin is lun from which the word lunar is derived.Can you guess the meaning of the word lunatic? [both 3 and 4 ;doolaly is an toponym ,from the place Deolali in Maharashtra]
5. Astral,astronaut,astrology,asterisk are words having the common element aster?Can you guess the root and the meaning of the same? [astro-star]

Hope you guys managed most of them !!!!!

EngQuizzitive-19 (grammar):Quiz

EngQuizzitive-18 (grammar) : Answers

Concluding series on Tenses : Future tense

Answers

1. I will have completed my work by this time tommorow.
2. I will/shall sing at the concert tomorrow. [the meaning would change]
3. Would you like to have a cup of coffee? [for explanation check the post on modals]
4. If I were the President of India,I would help alleviate the problem of poverty in India.[conditional clause : the verb with I is always were ;If+I=were]
5. In the fall I will have been studying here for two years. [Future perfect continuous]

EngQuizzitive - 18 (vocab : confusable words):Quiz

EngQuizzitive - 18 (vocab : confusable words)

Answers

1. She made gestures to her friends implying that I was lying about my illness. [Imply means to indicate indirectly whereas infer is to come to a conclusion based on what is stated or implied]
2. Her friends inferred that I was lying about my illness.
3. The climactic events of the Indian freedom struggle began to unfold after the Quit India movement of 1942. [The adjective of climate is climatic meaning related to the climate and the adjective of climax is climactic meaning related to the climax]
4. Climatic changes-say a delayed monsoon-can still affect the Indian economy.
5. When dad fills a form he mentions all of you as his dependants. [Dependent is an adjective as well as a noun;meaning relying on and hence will always be followed by a on/upon.Dependant is only a noun.]

A few more such words :

abhorent/aberrantr
ability/capacity
adopt/adapt
amoral/immoral
all ready/already
all together / altogether
a while /awhile
bad/badly
good/well
comprise/constituent
toward/towards
borrow/loan
childlike/childish
clothes/clothing

EngQuizzitive - 17 (grammar):Quiz

EngQuizzitive - 17 (grammar) : Answers

Topic : Verbs-III (tense : Past)

This quiz was based on all the past tenses i.e. Simple Past /Past Perfect/Past Continuous/Past-Perfect Continuous


An example to illustrate the usage of these tenses:


Simple Past : I ran.
Past Perfect : I had run.
Past Continuous : I was running.
Past Perfect Continuous : I had been running.


Usage of the Simple past tense: A simple past tense is used to indicate a past action.
Usage of the Present Continuous tense: A past continuous tense is used to indicate any activity that was  happening in the past.
Usage of the Past Perfect tense: A past perfect tense is used when there are two actions in the past : one happened before the other ;the first action takes a past perfect and the other takes a simple past.


e.g.I had had my dinner before Suman came.


Another area in past tense that is evaluated in entrance exams is the irregular past forms of verbs.


e.g. hang/hung.rise/raise,spendspent,light/lighted,lit etc


I'll be soon posting a list of patterns that exist in the past form of the verb.


Answers


1. Hardly had he reached the mountain top when it began to rain. [see explanation of past perfect]
2. The photograph was hung on the wall.
3. He is a learned man.(though learned/learnt are the past forms of learn here the word learned is used as an adjective and not a verb)
4. The apple of discord was cast in the house of the Ambanis.[irregular verb form]
5. No sooner had I left the station than the train left.[double conjunctions hardly,scarcely and no sooner are always followed by the verb 'had' as they are used to indicate the past perfect tense]

Please feel free to post any queries in the comments section of this post.

EngQuizzitive - 16 (reasoning) : Quiz (FIJ)

EngQuizzitive - 16 (reasoning) : Answers [FIJ]

Fact/Inference/Judgement

Fact is any statement that can be verified.[verified meaning one can find out whether it is true or false,it need not be true] A fact is also known as a Premise.
Opinion is any statement that cannot be verified.An opinion is also called as a Judgement.
Inference is a combination of a fact and judgement

Template for a Fact

• anything that is countable [data,survey,research,information];eg. Symbiosis has 25 faculty members.
• anything that is visible [since it can be verifiable];eg. The Sun rises in the North.
• when time is given : a past and a present activity will be a fact; eg. It rained yesterday.
• any mass activity like a bandh,strike,riot
• quote by someone for a reader is always a fact

Template for a Judgement

• an advice given by the author [key word : should]
• a future activity or prediction
• key words like 'seems,appears to ' etc
• author's views stated
• presence of abstract nouns,adjectives and adverbs will also be an indicator of an opinion

An Inference would be a judgement derived from the fact,since the fact is verifiable the judgement would also be verifiable [plz note CAT does not differentiate between an inference and a conclusion in FIJ hence in these questions an Inference is a Conclusion;but in Critical reasoning CAT does differentiate between a conclusion and an inference]

eg. A chair has four legs [F]
     This chair is comfortable to sit. [J]

This chair has four legs therefore comfortable to sit. [I]

On the basis of this try and solve the quiz.

Answers
1) F
2) J
3) J
4) I
5) J

If you have any queries please post them in the comments section of this post.

Should I post a quiz on FIJ?

Since 200+ students said a 'Yes' to the below question, I am going to post a reasoning quiz on FIJ this Thursday instead of a vocab quiz.

EngQuizzitive - 15 (grammar) : Quiz