All five mistakes from this chapter as one editing pass, and the fussy 'rules' you can safely ignore.
Preview · progress not saved — Chapter 1 is free
Five faults, one editing pass, and the four things the chapter deliberately refused to tell you.
Twenty faulty sentences, five faults. Naming the fault is the first move of the editing pass.
Sort each item into the correct category
Eight questions, none of them about the rules. All eight are about the places the chapter refused to give you one.
This block does not test the chapter's rules. It tests where each rule stops.
A reader who has absorbed only these words are wrong will get most of these wrong, and that is the point of the block. The chapter refused to teach four pedantries, and knowing which four is worth as much as knowing the rules themselves — because over-correcting is its own kind of error, and it is one you will apply confidently.
"A fleet of thirty vessels, decimated by the storm, limped back into port." Is decimate being used acceptably?
Eight blanks covering all five sprints. Two of them keep the longer or rarer form, because that is where the rules stop.
energy costs have risen sharply, several councils have looked again at district heating.
The of the task is easy to underestimate: retrofitting an existing network is slow, expensive and disruptive.
Small schemes the great majority of those built so far, and few have been evaluated properly.
One exception is a scheme in the north-west, which waste heat from a leisure centre to warm two adjacent buildings — a purpose nobody had designed the plant for when it was built in 1974.
the evaluation found real savings, it also identified a wide of smaller problems, most of them to do with metering.
The department has since introduced procedures to that future schemes are monitored from the outset, and has said it will review the guidance again costs rise further.
A paragraph carrying all five faults at once. Clean it, then say which fault you would look for first under exam conditions.
The paragraph — 118 words, and it carries every fault in the chapter
It is important to note that, due to the fact that public transport funding has been cut, there are many commuters who have returned to driving. The enormity of the resulting congestion has surprised planners. In spite of the fact that several councils have commenced schemes to ascertain the causes, the evidence is comprised of little more than traffic counts. Bus operators, who are effectively disinterested in the outcome, have been flaunting the timetabling rules for years, and one recent report affords for the sector a plethora of excuses. At this point in time the regulations proscribe minimum service levels, but enforcement is rare.
Rewrite it, 70–100 words.
Keep every claim and every connective relation. One of the corrections changes what the paragraph actually says, and one of the words that looks wrong is doing its job perfectly well — the paragraph is not simply a list of errors.
You may fix or replace. include, allow, use, begin, because, if, many, find out are all correct English, and choosing them is a strategy rather than a retreat.
Then answer the two questions below. The second one matters more than the rewrite.
70–100 words. Every claim kept, every connective relation kept.
The chapter's one reversing pair.
This is the question the chapter was building towards.
Forty items is a list. Name the three changes you will actually make.