ego4u Board for Teachers

Subject: Who is teaching the teachers?

Paul Ingrams (95.148.106.*) wrote on 22.06.12 at 15:22

Hold the mouse pointer over (i) in order to get an explanation on the correct answer. Is the correct answer coloured in brown, hold the mouse pointer over the correct answer to see what your wrong answer.

Hi

I was recommended to this site by the head of the terrifying TESOL course I am about to undertake, and have been trying some of the grammar tests for size. I've worked professionally with the English language all my life, often in supervisory roles; and, while I accept that I have developed many bad habits, and have little recollection of the formal rules taught to me in school, whether in English, Latin or Greek, I don't tend to fail at multiple-choice questionnaires on basic aspects of grammar in my own language!

It's frustrating, therefore, to be told that I have submitted a 'wrong' answer, when I know I haven't, and then to be confronted with the sentences reproduced above! It's 'explanation of', not 'on' - 'see what your wrong answer is', not just 'see what your wrong answer' - while a sentence beginning with 'Is' is invariably a question, that should be characterised by the use of a question mark at the end. In fact, this sentence only makes sense as a statement: 'The correct answer IS coloured (not 'in') brown, hold the mouse pointer (incorrect term, we just say 'pointer', or 'mouse-over'.) It is not necessary to repeat 'the correct answer', which could be substituted by the impersonal pronoun, 'it'...

Sorry to carp, cavil and criticise, but I do wonder who has been teaching the teacher?