Grammatical mistakes would affect your marks in DSE. It is important to ensure your writing is error-free. Today, Wall Street English compiled 5 common grammatical errors made by DSE students. Let’s see if you have made any of these mistakes!

 

1. Wrong use of commas

Many students use commas wrongly. They put commas in any possible places, leading to grammatical mistakes. For instance, in the following sentence, the comma is not supposed to be there as the two sentences, “He ate a sandwich” and “he didn’t pay for it” are two independent clauses. To correct it, we should use semicolon instead of comma, or we add conjunctions.

e.g.

  • Incorrect: He ate the sandwich, he didn’t pay for it.
  • Correct: He ate the sandwich; he didn’t pay for it. / He ate the sandwich he didn’t pay for.

 

2. Dangling modifier

A dangling modifier is a phrase or clause that is not clearly and logically related to the word or words it modifies. In the sentence below, it is the stick that has been thrown in the air, but not the dog. Therefore, the meaning is wrong for the incorrect sentence.

e.g.

  • Incorrect: Having been thrown in the air, the dog caught the stick.
  • Correct: Having been thrown in the air, the stick was then caught by the dog.

 

3. Verbs that should not be followed by a preposition

In some cases, prepositions should not be used after the verb. Discuss, seek, accompany, demand, and crave are some common examples that students may make mistakes on.

e.g.

  • Incorrect: Staff demand for a pay rise.
  • Correct: There is a demand for a pay rise.

 

4. Chinglish

Some students directly translate Chinese into English, causing grammar mistakes.

e.g.

Incorrect: They are difficult to escape from this vicious cycle.

Correct: It is difficult for them to escape from this vicious cycle.

 

5. The two parts joined by “and” do not have the same subject

If there is no direct relationship between the two sentences, “and” should not be used in the middle of the sentence as the subject has no relationship with the latter part of the sentence.

e.g.

  • Incorrect: The park has a convenient location and get there in 30 minutes.
  • Correct: The park has a convenient location. We can get there in 30 minutes.

 

 

How many mistakes did you make? If you want to know how good your English is, feel free to try the quiz below to test your English level!