Hacker site review

Practicing all the exercises on clear sentences in Hacker website, I improved my knowledge on grammar. As first two exercises were quite easy, I was thinking that I would finish it fast. Apparently, after practicing some other exercises, I was challenged by those grammatical errors. Some of the exercises were really useful for me as I was editing those sentences, such as needed words. In this exercise, I learned better where to use needed words. For example, “A vegetarian diet is as healthy, and probably healthier than, a diet that includes meat”. Here the word “as” is missing after the word “healthy” and without this word the sentence is not grammatically correct. Another good exercise that was helpful to me was mixed constructions. Even though I thought I had enough knowledge about this grammar, still I learned enough to improve my grammar. One example from the exercise: “From his great-grandmother, who had emigrated from Ireland, had left him a small ceramic music box with a tiny harp on top” should be “his great-grandmother, who had emigrated from Ireland, had left him a small ceramic music box with a tiny harp on top” otherwise it would  be grammatically wrong. After all, the exercises were useful, and I think editing sentences is really helpful.

Hacker review of clear sentences

8-1 Active vs. passive verbs

It was helpful, but at the same time I knew that from before.

8-2 Active vs. be verbs

This exercise was helpful for me to understand the difference better.

8-3 Active verbs (edit and compare)

This exercise helped me to improve my grammar skills such as changing an active sentence to a passive sentence.

9-1 Parallelism

I already knew what parallelism is. But, it was refreshing. 

9-2 Parallelism

I knew that items in series should be parallel.  

9-3 Parallelism (edit and compare)

This exercise was helpful to have even better idea of parallelism.

10-1 Needed words

This exercise helped me to understand how much of  difference can a needed word make in a sentence, for example if we do not use a needed word, the meaning of a sentence might change.

10-2 Needed words (edit and compare)

From this exercise, I came to know what the relevant use of relative pronoun and relative adverbs is in sentences. 

11-1 Mixed constructions.

This exercise helped me to understand how to put sentences in a correct order.

11-2 Mixed constructions  (edit and compare)

This one was also really beneficial for me. Even though I thought I had enough knowledge about it, I still learned the organization of a sentence from this exercise.

12-1 Misplaced modifiers

I had some wrong answers on some of the questions, and I figured out my problem by correcting myself. It was also beneficial.

12-2 Misplaced modifiers  (edit and compare)

This one was pretty much the same as the previous exercise, I already learned from the previous one.

12-3 Dangling modifiers

It did not help very much, as I learned this from before.

12-4 Dangling modifiers  (edit and compare)

This exercise was almost the same, so even this one was not helpful.


13-1 Shifts: person and number

I already knew how to use pronouns and numbers correctly.

13-2 Shifts: tense

This was also refreshing exercise, because I knew that within a sentence the tense should be accordingly correct. for example, if one sentence is in present tense the following sentence should also be in present tense if it is related to the previous one.

13-3 Shifts

this one was also similar exercise, so even this one was refreshing.

13-4 Shifts (edit and compare)

This exercise was a good example of shifts as well.

14-1 Choppy sentences

This exercise was really helpful to me, as they were challenging. Even though both of the options were correct, one of them was more efficient.                                                                                                                             

14-2 Choppy sentences (edit and compare)

I found this one also beneficial to me. Because the practice was a bit tricky, and by editing them I learned a lot about making a sentence efficient.

14-3 Subordination

I learned from this practice that emphasizing one clause can change the meaning of a sentence. This was helpful to me.

My evaluations of story in a box

is found here
top three is found here

Misplaced modifiers

Misplaced modifiers

Misplaced modifiers…

We chose to study misplaced modifiers. A modifier is a word or a phrase that describes something else. You should place it as close as possible to what it describes. If you don't, your intended meaning may not be clear.

Consider the unintentional meanings in the following:  

• The young girl was walking the dog in a short skirt.
• The dog was chasing the boy with the spiked collar.

You can see what's wrong. The dog isn't "in a short skirt" and the boy doesn't have a "spiked collar." Because the modifier is misplaced, we have to think for a minute before we get the intended meaning. The correct versions are:

• The young girl in a short skirt was walking the dog.
• The dog with the spiked collar was chasing the boy.

You also need use  modifiers such as almost, even, hardly, nearly, often, and only appropriately

1.      He almost ran around the yard twenty times.

2.      He nearly ate a whole box of treats.

In both sentences when he "almost ran" and "nearly ate"--nothing happened! He didn't quite get around to doing either thing. What is intended is:

1. He ran around the yard almost twenty times.
2. He ate nearly a whole box of treats.

If you give the readers to interpret something in more than one way, they will probably get it wrong. Make sure you place the modifiers correctly so that you will eliminate the reader from interpreting something differently instead they will have a better chance of getting what you want to interpret.

When is a story good?

1. Interesting topic
2. A catchy introduction
3.A good organisation (thesis ..body ..ending clear main point)
4.Good grammar
5.Spelling
6.Good Transition
7.Creative body
8. Original writing (unique)
9. Good characterization
10. Should be logical
11. Clear and intresting ending

Story in a box

The story is related to my life. When I was 8 years old, my family and my uncle used to live together. My uncle used to tell me what his plans are after his retirement. Well, his plans were to travel all over the world. After some time he had finally retired, and his goal came true; he had chance to travel, so he did. At the time he was traveling, I was 10 years old. Obviously, I was waiting him to bring me some gifts when he comes back. After he came back, he told me that he brought some pictures of some historical places, and collected some antique things that are fun. So, I was told that he will give some of the antique collections. However, after he came home he started telling us some of the stories that happened while he was traveling. The story started off traveling to china. My uncle said that when he went to china, and he met with a guy who used to earn money by playing a drum in streets. My uncle tried to talk to him as the guy looked so poor. So, my uncle tried to give him some money to help him, and the guy felt bad to get the money just for nothing, then he offered one very historical cloth as the cloth had a history of 200 years and the guy gave the cloth to my uncle. Then, my uncle moved to another story, and told us about a museum of sculptures that he visited when he was in china. He told that the some sculptures were handcrafted such as the head of valburga. Nonetheless, most of them were made by molding them such as the statue of a black woman with some historical clothes. He said he enjoyed in china a lot, and he started talking about his travel to Spain. First of all he said that Spain was famous by its agricultural industry, so he started visiting some farms in Spain to make sure if it is real or not. Once he went to one of the farms there, he found out that they call farms as “finca” in their language. He said that after seeing many farms, he was positive that Spain has a leading agricultural industry in the world. Then my uncle was really interested in visiting some stores that sell some antique collections in Spain. When he went to one antique selling store, he really liked some antique and unique things. Then he purchased total of 4 things that are little boat made by hand and wooden, glass jar which has been used to keep some medicine in 19th century, an ornament which has been found by archeologists and one historical leather wallet which was the most expensive thing in my uncle’s collection. Before his travel back, when he was walking in a garden, he found three chestnuts and he thinks that those chestnuts brought him luck and easiness while he was coming back. So my uncle said that he is going to give those chestnuts to me so that they would bring me luck. Obviously, my family and I was tired that night after meeting again with my uncle and talking to him for hours, then everybody went to sleep as my uncle said that he will tell the rest of the story the next day. Since that time I have been keeping those chestnuts in my bag and I think those chestnuts really made me lucky.

Inventory list

1.       A wooden ruler-It is 30-sentimeters long, and it is in yellow color. Additionally it has two measuring scales.   

2.       Chestnuts- there were three small chestnuts. They all had different sizes but similar shape.

3.       A head of Valburga-Made of wood, and in yellow color. Seems like it is bold.

4.       A sculpture-it is a wooden sculpture of man playing drum. The man has hat and long scarf.

5.       A wallet- which has information about the year of a dog on one side, and on the other side it has currency of Singapore with some coins.

6.       Black statue of a young woman-The woman has traditional clothes. The statue is about a foot and a half tall.

7.       Cloth- it is historical Chinese cloth which has a history of 200 years. It is warm cloth because it has two layers.

8.       Canoe- it is made of wood and it is small. It has one stick that holds both sides.

9.       Wallet-this wallet is from Mongolia. Looks like it is made of leather, and has some patterns on it.

10.   Finca- it is a Spanish word for farm. The farm has a small yard.

11.   Ornament-it is small ornament, and it is hard. The ornament is yellow.

12.   Glass jar-it has two colors: green and light yellow.

what do people write when they are asked "who am I"

It was obvious that all people would write about themselves, but at the same time I observed that the style of everybody was different. Somebody would answer it by talking about his/her preferences while others said that they would first of all talk about the place that they were grew up. Another person was also thinking of writing about daily schedules, and there was also an opinion of writing about the religion that they believe.