I found chapter 4 to be relatively easy. I think, more than anything, it should me that we often use words and phrases as we are talking that are grammatically incorrect. Exercise 4.1 and 4.2 were easy. I had some difficulty with exercise 4.3, because I felt like I had to focus on what the modifiers (adjectives/adverbs) were supposed to modify. Like, in question1 “The union negotiators are ONLY asking for a small increase in salary.” I had a hard time determining where “only” needed to go. I had a similar issue with question 8 “The magician EVEN has one more trick up his sleeve.” The correct answer is “The magician has even one more trick up his sleeve,” but I wanted to put “even” at the beginning of the sentence. The final chapter exercise combined these new concepts. I had a question about 10, “Kittens can sure be curious.” I took “sure” completely out, but the correct answer is “Kittens surely can be curious.” With a little extra practice, I am sure these concepts will become easier.

I found certain concepts from the rest of chapter 3 to be relatively easy, while I found others to be complex and difficult to understand. The verb phrases and phrasal verbs were pretty easy. The only question I had was about exercise 3.5 problem 4- “Demand for housing has driven up the market value of homes.” Why is the word “up” a part of the verb phrase? The reflexive pronouns were a little difficult, because I wanted to automatically assume that all reflexive pronouns referred back to the noun/subject; however, some of them can be the object. I struggled the most with the specialized structures seen in exercises 3.7 and 3.8. I think in these exercises I see what I was struggling with: indirect objects (like in question 2 in exercise 3.7 and questions 2 & 4 in exercise 3.8), and prepositional phrases and what the modify. With a little extra practice, I am sure these concepts will become easier. 

The second part of chapter 3 introduces the final two sentence patterns—(9) s-tv-do-adj (10) s-tv-do-n. These final two sentence patterns remind me of patterns 2-5, because they end with either a noun or an adjective. Exercise 3.4 was a little confusing. I think I am still getting confused about the placement of prepositional phrases—do they modify the subject or the predicate? Where do they go? Like in exercise 6, “Before her trip to the zoo, Paige had never seen a giraffe.” “Before her trip to the zoo” contains two prepositional phrases. When diagramed they are connected, but I don’t understand why they are not two separate prepositional phrases in the diagram. And the word “as”—I know that it is supposed to go above the baseline on a dotted line, but I always want to place it under the baseline (like the word “the”). I think I need a little more practice diagramming these last 5 sentence patterns.

Emma D.

Chapter 3 discussed the sentence patterns for transitive and intransitive verbs. This chapter introduced the last four sentence patterns—(6) s-itv (7) s-tv-do (8) s-tv-io-do (9) s-tv-do-adj (10) s-tv-do-n. In comparison to the last chapter, I found this chapter to be extremely difficult. I feel like I understand in theory how this should work, but I really struggled with the exercises. For example, exercise 5 on page 69 says, “Our walk on the beach became a comedy of errors.” The phrase “a comedy of errors” threw me off—why is “comedy” referring back to the walk as opposed to “errors”? It seems like comedy is describing the kind of error. And exercise 6 on the same page was confusing, too—“Our walk on the beach ended abruptly with the onset of lightning.” Before diagraming the sentence, I circled to prepositional phrases (and maybe this was just an error on my part) but I circled “with the onset” and “of lightning” as two separate prepositional phrases, and this confused me in the diagramming process. And, exercise 3 on page 73 was confusing—“All of the teachers have submitted their lesson plans.” I understand that “of the teachers” is a prepositional phrase, but I feel like “all” is referring to teachers (which is what I thought was the subject). It makes sense that “teachers” can’t be the subject because it is in a prep phrase, but it seems odd that “all” is the subject. I definitely need more practice with the concepts from chapter 3.

Chapter two discusses sentence patterns for both “be” and “linking” verbs. The chapters introduces 5 patterns— (1) subject-be-adv./time or place (2) subject-be-predicate adjective (3) subject-be-predicate noun (4) subject-linking verb-predicate adjective (5) subject-linking verb-predicate noun. Notice that patterns 3 and 5 are similar, and patterns 2 and four are similar. The only difference is the type of verb (“be” or “linking”). By recognizing these patterns one can easily learn how to diagram sentences. I found this chapter to be relatively easy; however, I will definitely be creating flashcards to help me recognize the different sentence patterns. I also found it difficult to diagram sentences that start with a prepositional phrase, for example “After ten minutes, Theresa’s face grew red with impatience” (pg. 61). Originally, I did not recognize “after ten minutes” as a prepositional phrase. Then, once I realized it I had no idea where to put it in the diagram. Additionally, the sentence ends with a prepositional phrase which makes it rather complicated. I could also use more practice with pedestals which are used when the predicate adjective is a prepositional phrase, like sentence 6 on page 55 (“The car is in good condition”). With a little extra practice I am sure that this will become easier.