 from the last class. Well, I left them at the end of the class. The two punctuation exercises that I left you. So there was set one and set two. Each one has five questions, so that's where we're going to start out. And if you could just hit me with your answers in the chat, that would be awesome. Let's start with the first set. Just give me your five answers in the chat. We'll check them out really quick together. So we're going to see a variety of punctuation questions between these two sets. And I think they all are very similar to what you would see on the test. Did anybody take the test last Saturday? Yeah, I took the test last Saturday. Yeah, you did? How was it? Yeah. It wasn't too bad. I thought it was like the exams on the test, perhaps. That's one of the things I was wondering. Did you feel like it was very similar to the practice material that they gave? Yeah, it was nearly the same. OK, great. All right, that's good to hear. Because it's weird right now. Because in the past, everybody got the same test. So I would ask people, and you'd get a lot of consistent feedback. Now that everybody's test is different, it's kind of hard to get that information. I feel like after every SAT, there were always a bunch of people making summaries of it or talking about what the grades would be like. And it's like, now it's all, everybody's case is different. So you really don't know. But yeah. All right, David, I got your answers. Thank you. Let's get those punctuation set one answers over to me, because I want to see how you did with them. And Harold, no worries. You weren't here, I think, for the last class. So you might not have seen those files. Do you need those? Yes, please. OK, sure. I'll re-send those to you. I wasn't sure. Yeah, I just started thinking about that now. I was like, you know what, you might not have these. So I'll send those to you directly. And you can kind of follow along with us on this one. There you go. I just sent them to you on WhatsApp directly. Yes, I have them. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. All right, you already checked yourself, Nicholas. That's cool. Yeah, we'll go through and just take a quick look and see if there's anything we can understand from those mistakes. Thank you, Mohammed. Got yours. All right. So the first set here, and we're actually going to see another example that kind of contrasts well with this example. But this first one is asking about just how to put the punctuation in this specific case. Now, again, when we want to get faster on this test, we have to only read what we need. And so I do not need to read any more than this right here. Just the first sentence, because this is a punctuation question, that is all that matters. So keep that in mind. We want to go fast and be accurate. So we really don't need to read any of this stuff. This is all a waste of your time. So I'm just looking at this. And because we have this a new compound, right? It could be anything. There's so many different compounds. So here I have to use the commas to separate the word. And so I think looking at all your answers, everybody figured that out. So we would want to use B, where we have a comma before and after. We're defining that new compound. And when we define stuff, we're going to usually separate it with some punctuation. So that's the case here. If this were the new compound, then it's kind of assumed that it's already defined. And so we would actually just put the name without the punctuation. So A would be correct if this says D new compound. But because it doesn't say D, it says A, we're going to need to use B. All right? The next one here, let me see. It looks like everybody's a couple different answers actually here. All right, so this one's a little bit weird with the word whereas. Now with whereas, in this kind of case, in general actually, I'm not going to use a comma after the word whereas. And so that can eliminate A and D right away. Whereas also like other WH words is going to connect with just some simple punctuation usually. If it starts the sentence, I wouldn't need any punctuation. If I have it in the middle, then I would need some punctuation before it, generally. So in this case, I have this first clause. For example, a hawk will soar high into the sky and swoop down to catch its prey. A sparrow usually stays close to the ground and floats from tree to branch or branch to branch. So in this case, I do want to have some kind of pause before this. And I think that that makes C the best answer. If I don't have any punctuation, then it doesn't have the pause that it needs right here. Like I'm starting, I'm contrasting these two cases. And so I want that pause to help me separate these two ideas. So without that punctuation, that doesn't quite work. This is too much punctuation. Like whereas a sparrow, I don't want to do that with these WH words, generally speaking. So think about words like when, where. Anytime I use those words, I'm not going to put a comma after them. Only maybe before. It could be OK to use just a comma before here. But really because I need some punctuation before and not after, C is really the best choice here. That's the one you want to go with. So that's the reason why. Again, if this word were while, it could also work. And I would do the same thing. So I had some misses on that one. All right, let's take a look at number three. OK, so here we have just we're wrapping up the sentence. And again, I don't need to read more than this. So OK, although they were eventually defeated by European forces, remnants of the culture still exist today throughout Latin America, illustrating the profound impact it had on history. OK, so in this case, I think that most people looks like you got this right. We want to use B, just a comma. Keep it simple. A lot of times, we'll use that comma before an ING verb when we want to add like a little bit of extra action or extra discussion about a topic here. The semicolon would be unnecessary and actually wouldn't work because we should have a complete sentence after a semicolon. A regular colon doesn't make sense here either because we're not defining anything in this previous sentence. And the parentheses don't really make sense to finish on here. It's that would be kind of weird, so don't do that. So yeah, I think everybody got that right. We want to B. Fourth one, let me take a look at yours. OK, it looks like we all agree on this one as well, D. Again, now in the case of these bigger connectors, if we want to use them in the middle of a sentence, we do need a punctuation before and we're going to use a comma after. OK, so that's for these kinds of connectors, right? Not those WH ones, like whereas. But if I have a connector like however, although despite something like there's a lot of different cases more over, further more, we're going to practice more of those today. But this is a correct way to join two sentences. I can use the semicolon before and then use the word and then a comma. And so this would be correct D. Can I ask a question? Yes, of course. So what's the difference between these connectors so that one is used only a punctuation before and the other one like both after? Basically, yeah. So when you have these bigger ones, like I tend to classify them sort of by size because that's usually how it goes. These larger logical connectors, especially the ones that make contrasts or elaborate arguments, those ones are going to use punctuation after all the time. So whether you start a sentence with this, if I start a sentence and say however, blah, blah, blah, I'm always going to start it like this with a comma after it. So when you see these words, you're going to want punctuation immediately after. Now, if you're putting it in the middle of the sentence here, you do need that punctuation before. And if you think about it, we did the same thing with this connector as well. I had punctuation before because it was in the middle of the sentence. But these lighter ones, these WH boys don't need that punctuation after. Does that make sense? So larger in length, number of letters, something like that? That's kind of a good way to remember it, honestly. I mean, it's not the best rule in the world. I know because there might be a couple little exceptions that we could see in here and there. But generally speaking, that rule works really well. So we're going to practice more of those words today to see which ones I'm talking about. And you'll see them used in some example sentences and in other exercise that we'll do. But that's kind of a good golden rule. It's just like those bigger words, those seven letter plus more overs, furthermore. Therefore, however, those kind of connectors typically work this way. So that's kind of the rule you want to stick to here. And so that's why we're using D in this case. Now, I personally would prefer you use a period and then start the next sentence with this and then use a comma. But this is also acceptable with the semicolon. And again, that works because we have a complete sentence after the semicolon. So that is also an acceptable use. Make sense? Yes, yes. All right, thanks for the question. OK, last one here. Let me see what you all have. Looks like C is a unanimous choice. Yes, this is perfect because here we have three factors. What three factors? Cleanliness, safety, and abundance. Like simple as that, I'm just going to use the colon to define what those three factors are. And that's really the best way to do it, even better than A. I mean, you could argue that A is also acceptable. But really, C is just the best answer. That's the best use of punctuation there. OK, good stuff. Let's move on to the second set. So I'm sorry, what was the answer of the first one? The first one on this set? Yeah. We're going to use A, or sorry, no, B. Oh, OK. Yep, we want the punctuation because it says A new compound. And anytime we have A, it's like undefined. And then we use these commas to sort of separate the definition to define what a new compound is, which one we're talking about. So yeah, all good or any other questions on that first set before I move on? OK, cool. All right, if you haven't sent me your answers for the second one, please do. I saw Stévan and Nico, you guys sent me already, both sets at the same time, which is cool. So this first one is actually pretty similar to the last one that we just saw. You have the opening here. Einstein is remembered for. And we have in the answer choice is several things, right? And so right there, again, it just it prompts the question, what things? Like as soon as I see that, and so that's a really good place for me to lay down the colon and start listing those things. His brilliant mind, his dedication to scientific inquiry, and his profound impact on our understanding of the universe. That is a little bit longer than you might normally see after colon, but it does work. We have a simple list of three things, and that defines what those things are. So C would definitely be a good choice. Looks like that's what Mosiah had. Now, several things such as his brilliant mind. If I just use such as his brilliant mind, there is one little issue with that. And just watch out for that comma at the end, because then there wouldn't be a separation between the first item on the list and the second item on the list. So there should be a comma at the end here of these answers, and then I want to use the colon in the middle. So always pay attention to what's changing in your answer choices. If you don't see, like if I see, OK, there's comma, comma, comma, and then this one doesn't have a comma, I should watch out for that. And then I see that like in the middle, clearly there's a different thing every time. So that's probably what I want to focus on the most, is like what's changing in the middle since I see it's different in all four responses. That's a good approach when you're dealing with punctuation questions, is just what's changing. Really focus on what's changing and then apply your strategies. All right, let's see what you got for the second one here. So OK, again, I just want to read this right here. I see that I just have to focus on this sentence. Plants play an important role in the environment by moderating temperature, controlling soil erosion, and purifying the air, not to mention contributing to beautiful scenery. So we have a long list that we added like a little extra something to with this not to mention. OK, so we can rule out a couple of options here right away. I would rule out D because this is not a complete sentence and so that would be wrong. I can rule out C because the ellipsis choice is very odd for this kind of text. That's usually something you might see in literature. I'm not liking that one too much. Now between A and B, I would probably lean towards A in this case just because I'm just going to use another comma with this not to mention contributing to and it's fine. Like this is simple enough. No need to make it more complicated. I might consider B if this was, if I saw it somewhere else in the text so that it's consistent. There's also a missing period on this one. So that makes me a little questionable about that too. So again, I want to pay attention to the entire answer choice. Don't just read to here and go, oh, this is it. Like make sure you read all the way through your answer choices because if you miss something like that, you're going to have a bad time. So A would be your best answer. The third one here, now I thought this one was a little bit trickier, but I think it makes sense. Again, I can see, I almost don't even really need to look at the text at all because clearly I'm putting in a full phrase and so I just want to focus on my answers here. So we have the first choice where we have a second sentence right after a lab technician worked for months, she found a cure, hope was restored. After she found a cure. Okay, again, I'm looking at what's changing, right? I see that everything, the first part of this is exactly the same in all my answers, but I noticed that in one of them there's a comma between months and she. And then there's different punctuation here after the word cure. So I want to start with this. Like let's determine do I need this comma because if I do, I could just mark D and my life is great. So finally, after a lab technician worked for months, she found a cure. Now, I like this already because when we start sentences with time clauses, we always have a comma after them. Like whenever I do that, when I add that time context, I've got a comma after it. So that right there should be a clue that I probably want to go with D already. Now, if I go there and then, okay, what's the next choice? I have a semicolon hope was restored. That works. I mean, there's nothing wrong with that. So right away, I'm kind of leaning towards this. Now, if I look at B, because I saw some choices here, think back to what we talked about in the last class. We talked a little bit about this M dash and how it works. And remember that the M dash replaces other things, right? It could replace a comma. It could replace the colon. It could replace parentheses. Would I use a comma here to connect two sentences without a connector? I would not. Because anytime I use a comma, I need some kind of connector between those sentences. If otherwise it's what we call the comma splice and that's just like the lazy way to connect sentences and it's wrong in English. So if this is replacing a comma, then it's wrong. Now, if it's replacing a colon, that doesn't make sense because I already have an answer choice that uses a colon. So remember, it can't be doing the same thing. We can't have two of the same answers. So this must be a comma. And if it is a comma, then this is not correct because this would be one sentence and this would be another. And I don't have any sort of connecting word between them. So I can't mark B or C. And so I'm gonna go with D because I know that I want that comma after this time clause. And I can use a semicolon to join another sentence without any connectors. That is legal. Does that make sense? I wanna choose D. All right, get that thumbs up over there, appreciate it. Yeah, feel free to interrupt or just let me know if something didn't make sense there. Okay, number four. Number four was also a little bit odd. So in this one, we have kind of this weird section where it says they work tirelessly or endlessly. And it seems like it wants to separate those two words, like to kind of give you these two different ways of thinking of it, like tirelessly or endlessly. And so I feel like that or endlessly needs to be separated but it's also something that just could be removed from the sentence entirely. Like I could just say work tirelessly while the owner's profited from their labor. So I feel like I really just wanna put this almost in like parentheses or between two commas. And one answer does do that with the M dash, that would be C. And that's the one that I'm leaning towards right there because that would be the best, yeah. You wanna separate this with its own punctuation sort of implying that this is another way to think of it but it's not like super critical to the sentence. So if you had C for that one, good job. That's what we're looking for. And the last one here is gonna be, let's see, so we have a lot of different ways. These are kind of long answers. I want to point this out by the way. When you get more difficult questions on the digital SAT, you will find that the answer choices get longer, okay? That's one of the ways they try to make them harder is by making the answer choices longer, which slows you down a little bit. So if you do really good on the first part, you're gonna get that hard module on the second part and then you might see more questions like this. So again, you have to be able to quickly look at this and say, okay, what is changing? And I like to look vertically. So I see ever much with different punctuation combos and I know that that's what I need to start looking at. I wanna focus on this. So it's the most powerful telescope ever, much more powerful than the Hubble telescope. Okay, so that right there is sort of like a separate idea and it makes me think that that needs to be separated more from these other options. And so if I look at what I have, I have no punctuation, I have a colon, I have a comma, which could work, but then there's nothing here, which seems weird. I wouldn't just have one comma here. I would separate this extra information between two commas. And so again, I think the best choice is using the M dashes as a comma, which would be D. And I think that's what everybody here has put. So yeah, that would be good. I have a question. Sorry. I don't know if it's a typo or like in the test, like sometimes like wrong questions don't have like, you know, all the punctuation, but in option B, there's just one parenthesis. Yeah. I agree with you. I think that's supposed to, that's not supposed to be there actually. Oh, so that's a typo. Yeah, that actually would have been, I need to make a note as I continue using these things. You know, I keep catching little things that I have to fix. No, no, no, that's fine. Thank you for pointing that out. I just meant like if the exam also has like this little, or say like hints of wrong answers. Yeah, that's actually a really good question. So, and on that note, generally I would not expect to see that kind of mistake on the SAT intentionally. So, what I would think you would see here is just one or the other, either put this in parentheses or use the colon or something like that. Yeah. Like they don't try to trick you too much on those little things. Like, oh, you're missing one, but you got the other. Like they don't usually get like that dirty. But I have seen some cases where like, like these ones that we looked at before, where there could be some punctuation missing from the end. And that's important to watch because if it's not already here in the blank, then that could be a problem. You know, so just make sure you do read to the end of these because they could have different endings with the punctuation. And it's really easy to miss that, especially if there's like three that do the same thing. Cause you kind of assume it's there or your mind almost like auto-corrects it and puts it there. And then it's wrong because it didn't have that little punctuation there at the end. So that is something I have seen, but this should not be a problem, this kind of thing here. So I'll have to make sure I fix that. All right. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you for asking. Anything else before we move on? Are we good? Lovely. So let's see. I'm gonna open up a little doc here for everybody. Yeah, that's what we're gonna use. So let me get this link to everyone here in the chat. So if you click that link, it should take you to this file that is in our folder. And let me show you what that looks like. We're gonna do a little bit of practice with punctuation. And what I want you to do with this, since this is in our shared folder, this is just like a base version of this. If you wanna practice this with us, all you gotta do is go up here and hit file and make a copy of this file. And you can save it in your own Google Drive or you could just like copy, paste all this into a Word document if you want, whatever makes you happy. But the idea with this is there is no punctuation in this text. It's all gone. And there's none of it left. And what I want you to do is fix that. Okay, so in particular, we have these kinds of punctuations that we need to put in here. Okay, there are plenty of missing commas and periods. That is gonna be the majority of the work here. There is a set of quotation marks that you also need to add. There are a few apostrophes that go in here. I don't believe there's any apostrophe S situations where you don't need to add the S. But there are some apostrophes for like contractions and things that need to go in here. And then you're gonna have to add a colon and a semicolon in here somewhere. And a set of parentheses. So that's what goes in here. Now, you have all of this text here. And by the way, if you need to put periods, then you can also fix the capitalization. I took away the capital letters so that it wouldn't be totally obvious where you have to put the periods. So that'll make this a little tougher. But yeah, I wanna see if you can apply some of this punctuation in practice. Like, can you figure out where it should go in an otherwise punctuation-less text? And I think that's a really good way for us to sort of, see how we're handling these different punctuation marks. Are there any questions? All right, if not, go ahead. Sorry, where's that document? I don't know, I can read it. Yeah, I put a link in the Zoom chat for. Maybe we can get a private message for me because I can't. Okay, sure, I can also send it to our group chat if you want here. Let me make sure that's working. Should be, yep, it is. Okay, so, yeah, this is where we wanna be. Can you see that there in the WhatsApp chat? Wait, yeah, thank you. Yay, I see another anonymous critter icon up top, so that's a good sign. So yeah, all you gotta do is in here just hit File, make a copy, and you can save it somewhere in your drive. Or like I said, you could just open up a word doc and copy, paste all this stuff in there if you want. And then, yeah, so I wanna give you 10 minutes and see how far you can get with this, okay? And then we'll check it out together. All right, so that was 10 minutes. How we doing? Do we need more time? Are we good? How we feeling? Stay once happy. Thumbs up, go on. All right, Camilo, what about you? Nicolas, Sophia. Can you see that again? It was kinda quiet. Yeah, I was saying that I was almost done. Okay, cool. All right, what I wanna do with this then is kinda go through it with you and I'm just gonna ask people where you think we should be putting some punctuation. I wanna kinda go a little bit out of order, though. I wanna start with some of these other kinds of punctuations. We'll get to the commas and periods, kinda by paragraphs, but I wanted to look at some of the more obscure ones first, okay? Starting with the parentheses, actually. Does anybody have any idea as to where those should go? There's like one spot where they are really the best option. So if there's anybody who wants to take a shot at that. Yes. Go ahead and tell me. There was a topic in the University of Rome, A-M-S-E-U-R. Yeah, so you're saying right here? Yeah, that's right. Okay, that's a good answer, yep. So yeah, anytime I kinda present an abbreviation for the first time, that's a good place to put up the parentheses and just leave that there. Camilo, were you gonna say the same thing? Because I saw your hand go up. We'll play another one for you. All right, okay. So that was the parentheses. I don't really think there's any other case where I would use them here. That's the only one that I thought it was. I used another parentheses, but I'm not sure if that's okay. Where did you put them? It's the, wait, is the fourth paragraph? The one that starts with Southwestern Libya. At the end, it says, a professor of geography at the University of Utah. And I put in parentheses who was not involved in the study. Okay, I think that could also work here. That's not necessarily a bad idea. I like that. I think that like, yeah, this is an extra detail that we could maybe put in parentheses or sort of leave on the side somehow. So yeah, that seems like a fair place to put it. The original article didn't do that, to be honest, but that's, I don't think that's necessarily wrong. So I think that's a good alternative as well. Yeah, if you have any other ideas on this, feel free to throw them out because there's not necessarily one right answer. I mean, with punctuation, there's a little bit of flexibility sometimes. And I pulled an article, I took the punctuation out. I made a few small changes so that we could use a few more kinds. But like, yeah, there might be some subjective answers here. So feel free to let me know if you have some other ideas. All right, let's get into the colon and the semicolons. So there's a good spot for the colon. Does anybody have an idea on that one? If you wanna throw the hands up, I'm curious to see if you figured out where that goes. Where are we gonna put a colon in this thing? I'm not sure, but I put a colon in after it reports that. That's the third paragraph. So it would be like a study published last week in post-war reports that colon out of- Okay. Guy, right here you're saying, okay. So I'll be honest, in this case, that actually breaks up the natural flow of the sentence because I'm using the phrase reports that and now I'm saying what they report. So normally I wanna use that. Like I understand maybe where your logic is there because you're thinking about defining what was reported. At the same time, usually we don't wanna split up the verbs. So if you think about our other examples, I've usually used the colon when I have a noun right before it. Like that example that said Einstein was known for several things or several factors. So we have a thing that we need to define typically. So it could also be like people, but then I have the word person or something like that. Mohamed, what do you think on this one? I use a colon after Catherine Nicole. After- The same place? Right here. Okay, Catherine Nicole, a professor of geography at the University of Utah who was not involved in the study. I think you could do that as well here, although it would be a little less common to use that to define the name. I mean, I wouldn't say it's wrong, although I feel like it would be easier to just use a comma here because usually when I wanna explain who somebody is, I'm gonna put a comma. And so that's probably what I would use there. I think there's one really, really good spot for the colon, but I don't know if you've made it that far, so take a look at that very last line and tell me if you think that might be a good spot. Would it be after he's claimed that? It's the paragraph that has an angel. So again here, I don't wanna use a colon after those verbs. Like I'm not gonna use it- Would it break the flow? Yeah, because in this case, this already works. Like this actually doesn't need any punctuation. Generally I don't wanna put a punctuation mark right after my verbs because I wanna keep that action flowing. So again, I wanna use it usually when I have like some sort of thing or noun that hasn't been defined yet. And I wanna define it at the end and maybe with a very short phrase at the end. I think I know. I mean, when in the last sentences show evidence of other residents and then like colon, the humans we mentioned on them. That would be the best place for it here. Actually, yes, right here. If you think about this makes really good sense, right? Marks on the Fish Show are made evidence of other residents who the humans who've munched on them, right? So this is kind of a good way to use it right here, right? We have these other residents which is intentionally being kind of like Koi, right? It's like, well, who are you talking about? I don't really know. And then boom, the humans who munched on them, right? So the people that ate these fish. So that would be the best place for the colon here in my opinion. I don't think that I didn't see too many other cases where I would really want to use it. So for me, that was like the best one. Okay, so let's take a look at the, I think the apostrophes and quotation marks should be pretty easy. Apostrophes, we really, I think in this case they were only really being used in the contraction cases. So Sofia, what do you think on those? I actually have a question and it's pretty general, like in all situations. I know that in like different sighting forms, like for example, when you sight in MLA, you have to put the periods and inside the parentheses and stuff like that. They have like very specific rules. How does that apply on the ACT? Like, do they make you follow a format? And I'm sorry, that's a little off topic. I was just trying to, you know, while correcting how would I be able to put the periods and then I call them. Yeah, sure. So I mean, with regards to like the quotation marks and stuff, there is a standard way to use those across the board for all kinds of formats. Like MLA is specific to citations. And so that is probably not gonna come up like citation style is not really a thing that shows up much on the test. The only thing I've ever seen related to citations is using parentheses like around an author's name in the year. Cause like, you know, you can do that in the middle of the text, right? Like maybe in here, I could have had like, you know, what was the guy's name? Savino, you know, et al, 2007, something like that. Like this, this could be, this is a correct way to cite something in the middle of your text. I've seen a couple of things like that in some of the practices that I did, but like generally it's just even the years or something like that. Like, cause if you said the name in the text, you know, like I said, you know, we could have this, like this would just be foresighting when that study happened. So that's one place where I've seen that, but that's really the only thing. So I wouldn't worry too much about like applying MLA rules to this. Does that help? Yeah, it does. I was just a little ignorant on what should I use this. Okay, no worries. Yeah, that's a good question. So just going through real quick, some of these other ones like the apostrophes. Again, we're just looking to like put the, make sure those are perfectly put into our contraction words. So like isn't was one, I don't know if you saw any other ones in here. I'm scanning around, but if you want to shout out one and tell me, oh wait, there's one up here. Yeah, that's without the apostrophe is not a word. That's a good one to have. Oh, the areas, there was a possessive. Yeah, so yeah. Also like in the beginning of the article, it said life and I think it was lived, I don't know. Here? Adapted to live life. Oh, I mean, it could kind of work both ways. I get what you're saying, like adapted to, it would be adapted to living. I mean, it also by saying adapted to life, you're thinking about the conditions of life in that area and also even interactions with other life forms. Cause it's like about the, it's referring more to what it's like to live. So it does make, it does actually work if you leave it as life. It could be adapted to living. Technically also that would work. Fair question. So yeah, there was this one possessive in here too. So if you didn't see that one before, I didn't tell you about that. I think that's all that there was for those. All right. So the quotation marks, did anyone see where the quotation marks are supposed to go? Yeah, Mohammed, what'd you see? I saw one in the third paragraph, when the professor says, what did you say? It is really extraordinary. Yeah, okay. So where would they, where does the quotation start? Before it? Yeah, it seems like that comes before here, right? I wonder, it could honestly be all of this. It's a little hard to tell since I've broken up the sentences, but it definitely ends here. And let's just say it starts here for simplicity sake. So this is where I would want my quotation marks. I'm gonna just make those a little bigger and easier to see. What do I need in addition to this to complete this quotation? There's another important thing I have to do with quotations. I think a period. Like before it is among the most our locations. Yeah, okay. So we're gonna wanna probably separate the, maybe separate this. I could maybe use a semicolon here as well. I mean, it could work either way. So I could leave that optional. Let's use the period. It's among the most air conditions in the Sahara, so it is really extraordinary. What else? Specifically thinking about finishing that quote. The comma? Yeah, where does that go? So it is extraordinary, like before that. Right here? Yeah. Okay, that'll work too, but there's still something else I have to do. I'm not done yet. When we make quotations, right, this has to have a final punctuation. So before I close the quotes right here, I need to have some punctuation right here. What should go here? We need to practice this a little bit. Because I've seen a lot of SAT questions playing with quotation marks. I didn't used to see a lot of those, and so I think it's important for us to know how that works. There needs to be a comma there, okay? Before we explain who said it, there's always gonna be this comma here. Now, the actual thing that she said was all of this. And so this sentence in real life ended with a period, but because my sentence continues, I turn this into a comma. That's the general quotation mark rule. So now this looks good to me. We just need this period at the end. Again, we could have maybe split this part out. We could have, you know, we could maybe have a comma here, or like Sophia suggested, maybe put some parentheses around this. There's some other options here, but this works as it is now. This is an important rule to remember. And I can give you a couple other examples just to go over that real quick. Let's just go through real quick. Time phrases, right? Again, I wanna use commas after time phrases. So if you look at the very beginning of this, where would I wanna put a comma in this first paragraph? There's actually a couple of places where I should. What do you think? Maybe after years, thousands of years. Yep, okay, that's a good clear time clause. I probably wanna break up this sentence then. Yeah, so the same thing happens in the first sentence. The when is also acting as a time clause. And so I'm just gonna put another one here. So this is a rule that you wanna remember. Anytime we're establishing the time or place, like the context, we're usually gonna separate that with a comma when we start the sentence with that. So when you think of the Sahara comma, seafood probably isn't the first thing that springs to mind. And so this is helping us kind of contextualize and actually gives me a second to like think about the Sahara and then kinda get the joke. Same thing here, for thousands of years, this massive desert stretching across North Africa has been home to just the scant few animals adapted to life and hot-air land. It's all we need. Look at the very next one. Same thing is happening here. We have a time clause during the Holocene. And I don't know, I didn't study enough to know about the Holocene, but I know that the word during means that they're telling me the time. And so here I would want a comma as well. So whenever we have those time clauses that kinda start the sentence and give that context, we wanna make sure that we separate those with a comma. That's kind of an important thing to do when we have these. Now, this part here is totally fine because this here is the subject and then I have the verb and so we're gonna just continue found in the rock shelter in the central Sahara. Now, there might be a good spot for a comma right here because we have this, we've had a lot of text out of this many, this many. And we're kinda separating these two ideas. Again, I wanna help you separate the ideas in your head. So out of all of these, 80% were fish. Now, this fish, that doesn't work so that needs to be a period. We're gonna make that, that's a pretty stark difference from the dry desert we think of today. All right, so this is what you're, and also if we wanna be technical, we could have a comma here as well for the numbers because that's how numbers work. So we fixed this one already and then fossil record shows so we're seeing a decline over the years as the areas climate changed. Okay, that seems good, changed remains. I got two verb, two, well, verb and a noun. Separate that. Remains from the earliest dates are made up of around 90% fish species but by around 1,000, 5,000 years ago aquatic animals made up of less than half the population. All right, we could do that. Again, here's another example of a time clause. By then, using then as like a pronoun, I'm referring to another time, only small, hardy fish built out of a lot of shallow waters and high temperatures remained. So again, similar kind of, similar rules here. We have a time clause, we're gonna have a comma right after that. You know, here as well. We had this whole section defining who this person was and so when I kind of explain who somebody is, I'm usually gonna put that between commas and I would maybe wanna put one after AMSER then because all of this is together and this is acting as the abbreviation for this and so I would have my comma before that explanation and a comma after that explanation since 1990, we'd put a period there, capitalize that. Again, time clause. He claimed that around 12,000 years ago, shifts in monsoon patterns brought rain to the region and then we need to stop here because with increased rain grew waterways that connected to like Chad in the south and then Isle River in the north. I think here would be a good place for another one as well, possibly opening up a passage for these fish, yeah. Again, we're kind of separating our tenses as well. We had some something that happened in the past and then kind of a consequence of that so I wanna use a comma to sort of break those things up. So this is what we should see at the end of this more or less and again, there's some things that are subjective here. There might be some more than one optional or more than one way to handle this text but this is what we're looking to do. We're looking to be clear. Okay, when do I need these punctuations? Sophia? Since punctuation is something that will kind of varies many things can be correct. In the SAT, just like a machine or like a robot since it's digital now, check it or like there's a human that will test it too. Your questions will always have one right answer. There will always be something kind of wrong with the other answers. So there's never any case where like you have multiple choices that both would work. Even when there are situations where you could have two different punctuations one of them might change the meaning, one of them might like, you know like there's gonna be a reason why you can't choose the other three choices, okay? So just keep that in mind. For example, the parenthesis that, well, I used like in that sentence if I were to put that in the SAT because originally it wasn't there would it be counted as a mistake or? So indicate like if they gave you, I mean you're always gonna get four choices, right? They're gonna give you the options. So you don't, if you saw an option with parentheses here, you know then the only way that would work is if the other three options were completely wrong somehow, right? And so then you would say, okay, well then the best answer here is to put this information in parentheses, you know, so like let's say they gave you this, okay they give you a colon, that's wrong. They give you a semicolon, that's wrong too. I wouldn't need, like I could do a comma here that's an option that would be okay, right? So if that was my only like good choice maybe another option is for them to, I don't know, let's say they put a period and split it up, that would also be wrong. So if you had those three choices, if you had colon, semicolon, period you would go, okay, all three of those are wrong. And so if the other choice that's left is this like that's okay, now that becomes the best answer. Does that make sense? Yes, it does, thank you. Yeah, you're welcome. Yeah, that's something to keep in mind like generally you're never gonna have a situation where two answers are truly both equally correct. Like there will be some problem with one of those answers out of those two that you found or something. So it's just a question of being able to find it. All right, so yeah, if you've, you can take a look and compare this to yours. So we're gonna switch it up a little bit and get into some vocabulary stuff but I wanna take a little break because we've been going at it now for a little over an hour. So let's take 10 minutes and then we'll come back and continue working with some vocabulary stuff, okay? Alrighty, feeling refreshed? Feeling good? Get up, stretch around a little bit. It's getting hot in here. There's a guy painting my building. So he's been closing all the windows, make sure like paint doesn't fall into the house and stuff and stuff like getting all warm in here. Feel good to get, stretch my legs, get a glass of cold water onward. All right, let me share some screen because we're gonna do another little exercise. This one I think is a little more straightforward but we're gonna be focusing on connectors. I talked about this a little bit last week for vocabulary. Remember vocabulary is 30% of the digital SAT English grade. Like there's no one thing will help you more than practicing vocabulary. So it's really important. And if you wanna get better at vocabulary, then we gotta practice with it. And one of the things I think that's really important to practice are these connecting words because the vocabulary questions are really divided into two categories. One of them is just general vocabulary words and the other are these connectors. And so in the SAT they often ask you which of these provides the best transition between sentences. So we gotta practice using those in context. So we're gonna use this file just like we did with the other one. I'm gonna give you the link. And what I want you to do is just like the other one, make your own copy or go ahead and put it all in a word doc, whatever makes you happy. I'll leave that in our group chat too if you need it. So you will see here that we have I think 16, yeah 16 different sentences. There are a handful of cases where you might be able to use more than one connector so don't freak out if that's the case. I tried to make it so that there's like a best place for each one considering also punctuation. So the punctuation has already been put into this where it should be. So just keep that in mind. There are, I re-put the words on the second page just so that you would see them. You don't, it doesn't mean you have to use them twice. It just means like that they're all there so that you didn't have to scroll all the way back up. So the idea is to use each of these connectors once in this exercise. So you shouldn't have to repeat any of them. So the idea is just for you to go ahead and try to fill these out and let's see how we do. I wanna see if we can figure out where they should go. Make sure you pay close attention to the context because the context between the two sentences is gonna tell you if you are supposed to use a connector that is like a logical progressive connector or one that's more like contrasting things. So the context is gonna help you figure out which ones you should use. And then the punctuation can also help you sort of decide some of these as well. So just like we did before, I wanna give you 10 minutes to go ahead and work on this and then we'll check these out together. Are there any questions before we start? If not, then let's do this. All right, that's about our 10 minutes. Let's take a look and see what we've got so far. So I'm just gonna call people and I want you to tell me what you think. Now like I said, there are a couple of cases here where multiple options are valid and we'll get through those as we go. There's kind of like two sets here that are basically synonyms and so we could use either one. But let's kick it off with the first one here. Camila, what do you think for number one? Well, I actually put, for instance, in that space. Yup, that's a good answer. For instance would go here, absolutely. This is a good example of what we were talking about. For instance is basically the same as saying for example. Yeah, fun fact, Starbucks had to change the coloring that they used for their strawberry frappuccino because it used to contain crushed insect parts and the vegans were like, bro, that's not vegan and you said it was vegan and that became an issue. They changed it. So now you're no longer drinking insect parts when you go to Starbucks. The more you know. All right, Estelle, what do you think for the second one? Let me see. I put, nevertheless. Okay, yeah, I think that would work well and I feel like that's one of the ones that also has sort of a duplicate. Did anybody have a different answer for number two? Besides nevertheless, because there is another one that you could use. Maybe however. You got it, man, that's exactly it. Yeah, so you could use nevertheless or however, pretty much interchangeably in this context. In terms of like starting a sentence, they both work exactly the same. So no worries there. Okay, good stuff. Harold, while I got you, what do you got for number three? I said the match in Chile was canceled due to the ongoing protests. Lovely, due to. We don't need any punctuation with due to. We can just use it to explain the cause of something. So yep, that goes right in there. No punctuation necessary. Again, notice when we did for instance and when we did however or nevertheless, we started with the word and then a comma and then we had a period before those. All right, good stuff. Now, we got another one here with a semi colon combo. All right, Mohamed, what'd you get for four? I put therefore. Therefore. Yeah, I think that's the best answer as well. We're trying to show the consequence of something, right? So if the evidence is undeniable, it's like, yo, we've got the murder weapon and your blood all over it. And it's like, yeah, okay. All right, so, and I always say, therefore is a fancy way of saying so. Like you can try to test it that way. So they convicted the defendant without hesitation. Yeah, like, pretty easy. So good answer. Okay, Nicholas, what'd you get for five? Yeah, let me see, I put although. Okay, I think that looks like a good answer for me too. I wanna start out by saying although and I'm gonna use a comma after that clause and then we'll have the next clause straight up, right? Although global poverty has decreased significantly, the wealthiest people have gotten richer. So that seems like a pretty safe answer to me. I like it. Sophia, what do you got for six? I think modern slavery is equivalent in countries such as India and China. Okay, good, yeah. And no offense to my India, China peeps. Just, you know, unfortunately leading the world in those but you also have big populations. So that's not your fault. Such as, yeah, that would be the best one to use here. And just to clarify a little bit, like one of the differences between something like for instance and such as is that usually with a for instance or even an including, I'm gonna have some punctuation. So when I use for instance, I have a comma after it but with such as I don't need any punctuation. I could just slap it in the middle there like I did with do too. So that's one of the small differences to pay attention to such as is again, simpler, smaller words, less needed for punctuation, right? All right, moving on to the next part here. I think everybody's giving me an answer. So yeah, let's go back around. Camila, did you figure out seven? For seven I put nevertheless, though I'm not really sure that's the right answer. I think that would work just fine. And if we can use nevertheless, what else could we use here? However. Yup, that seems good to me. Yeah, we're just getting a contrast, right? We've got one side and the other side. One is saying that, you know, hey, this will work just fine. And the other one is saying no, it won't. So we're getting a little contrast between those two. So that would be fine for me. Ms. Devon, what do you think for number eight? Wait, including? All right, including evidence. No, sorry, that was not, all right, that was not. Despite, sorry. Okay, yeah, yeah. That sounds better. I thought that's what happened. Yeah, and again, if I use despite by itself like that, I don't need any, you know, punctuation with that. If I put this part first, then it works like although, right? I could move this and say, despite evidence of their actions, comma, people continue to support corp apologies. So despite and although have that same sort of like structure where I'm gonna use the comma after that clause, if it's the first clause, right? If it's the second clause, then we'll just finish on a period and everybody will go home happy. All right, so you said number nine, I agree. Including is a good one to use here. And including is one where I usually have a comma for it. So here I say Elon Musk is the CEO of several companies, comma, including space X and Tesla. That would be the right way to do that one. Okay, so it takes us up to number 10. Harold, did you get to 10? For number 10, I said, in addition to having to protect the president, the secret service also protects the US dollar from counter bail dates and manipulation. Put in addition. Okay, in addition to that would work just fine. There is another word here that basically is a synonym of that, that you could also use. Besides? Yep, yeah. So if you have besides or in addition to that's okay. And for 13, that's the other one as well. So if you're between these two, and you weren't sure, that's totally fine. You can really use both the same way. Besides is a good way to introduce other points, right? Besides this one responsibility, they also have these responsibilities. You can use in addition to as well. So really there's no big difference. A lot of times we use besides casually when we speak, sort of for like a less important additional thing. But really in practice it doesn't have any difference. So in addition to or besides would work for number 10. All right, Mohamed, what do you got for number 11? What do you think? I chose while. Okay, while the United States has decided to leave it. Now that could work if this was no punctuation here. I would say that would be a good answer. But in this case with some punctuation, I'm a little, I'm not so sure about that. Cause if I use while, it's gonna connect two complete sentences, or sorry, like it's gonna connect two complete sentences, but it's not gonna start one by itself. Would all of the work? Now, same kind of thing with that. Usually when I use although, I'm gonna have another clause. So most of those connectors on the other side. Okay, I heard a couple other ones, yeah. All right, good. I like that we're debating this a little bit. So something to keep in mind is like, most of these other connectors are gonna have two clauses in those sentences, right? Some of the exceptions include things like, nevertheless, however, furthermore, therefore, moreover, I could just have one clause after those, which is what we've seen in other examples. Like here I have a period, blank, comma, and one complete clause, right? Like a whole sentence. And so it's okay to use those there. While though, would actually require two clauses in the sentence, same with although, right? And same with things like despite and due to. So, and besides in addition to, so I'm gonna need multiple clauses for those words. So I wouldn't just have one of them in the sentence. So in this case, yeah, on the other hand, I think is a good choice here as well. And that one functions similarly to the, however's or nevertheless, but it also is used a lot when you have two very specific like alternatives, like two opposites. And in this case, it kind of fits nicely because we have all these other countries that are in this agreement and the United States leaving the agreement. Like it's two completely different, two opposite postures or two opposite positions. Whereas like a difference with this is that, I mean, you might be able to use it here as well, but at the same time, we're getting like, we're not saying that they're proposing the opposite, we're just saying that they're talking about a different consequence or a different aspect of that same issue, which is why I maybe wouldn't prefer to use that in number seven, for example. Or this case here, I mean, you know, we have scientists perspectives, but we also have the land reserved doing two different things. So again, there's maybe multiple dimensions to those problems. Whereas in this case, we have a very clear like, either you're in or you're out on the other hand. I feel like that's a good place for it. So, all right. Nicolas, what was number 12? I put furthermore, not sure. Okay. I think there was a better choice. And the word same is kind of a clue that I could use here. Any other ideas? Likewise. I think that would be a good fit, Harold. Yeah, nice answer. I think likewise is a great fit here because that's what I want to use when I want to show that like the same thing applies. And so, because it's saying that the protest and Ecuador stemmed or came from the same issue, that makes for a better connector. Furthermore, it's not bad in this case. I wouldn't say it's a bad connector. I think likewise is better, but I wouldn't say that like, furthermore is terrible in this case, because yeah, you're mentioning two different cases that are similar and it's in the same lines, but I think likewise hits better. All right. And then, so like I said, 13 would work basically the same as 10 because we have this and then we also have this, right? So, we're gonna use besides or in addition to, just like we could with this one. Sophia, what do you got for the 14? I wrote while essay writing can be boring, it's a useful skill to have. Okay. You could use that for sure. While it's boring, it could be a useful skill to have. I think that's a good example of where you might wanna use that. Again, using it kinda similar to although in this case. While can also be used just to show that two things are happening at the same time, but in this case, we can also kind of use it as a contrasting connector the way we use although. So, there are a couple of different options, you know? All right, last couple of ones. The last two I intentionally left at the end because they're again another kind of pair of synonyms. What are the words you could use for the last two? Go ahead and just tell me, what do you got? I put further more, but I don't think it's right in the 15. I think it is, I think it's absolutely right. Further more and more over, they both say more, which is kind of a good way to remember what they're trying to say. They're both adding points to an argument or building an argument, right? They're adding another reason or another supporting idea. So, I put further more for 15 as well, but then I thought and I changed it for instance. I think for instance, it's better. Okay, so for instance requires a specific example. I would have to say for instance, I don't know, Arnold Schwarzenegger managed to lose 16 pounds and over in only four days or something like that. Like I would need an example of that. I need an instance of that. So, yeah, in this case we have okay, it can help you lose weight and now I want to add to that argument and say it's faster than others. So not only will it help you lose weight, but it's even faster than other methods. Like that's even better. So I'm adding to the reasons why I think it's good. And so I'm going to use further more or I could use more over. The same thing here in 16, right? Heart season of the leading god of death in developed countries. And we're adding to that, it's projected to grow as life spans increase. So, heart season is only going to continue to be a cause of death as we live longer and longer. You guys are probably going to live to like 100. Isn't that awesome? So, both of those can work and notice again the two different punctuation styles that we have. We could do a full stop, period, put the word in, put a comma, or we could use the semi colon to do the same thing. So those would be the last two. Any questions about any of these? Do you have a question? Awesome. Like in the SAT, we're going to get exercises like this, like with connectors or is this just correct? Nope, you're going to get, I mean, not like this, exactly. But not, I mean, so all of the exercises that we've been doing, like the ones that I send the PDFs for, those are similar to the SAT. Those are like SAT style exercises, okay? With an A, B, C, D. All of your questions are going to be A, B, C, D on the English test, multiple choice. Every single one. Okay, so you're always going to get those, but I think it's good to practice sometimes using these words in context because if you think about what you're going to do on the test, you're going to, they're going to ask you which word provides the best transition. You're going to focus on just the two sentences that you need to connect because you don't need to read the whole paragraph and you're going to find the, choose the best word from your list and you're only going to have four words. This time I gave you 16. So if you can do this, the SAT should be easy. Does that make sense? Yeah, I actually read somewhere that if you acquire like a book or like, you know, a book that contains practices, those practices are supposed to be harder than the actual test. Is that actually true? That depends a little bit on the material. I think some book publishers tend to do that. I've always felt like the, I think it's the Kaplan ones tend to be a little tougher in my experience. At the same time, there really isn't any published material out there right now for this new version of the test. So it's kind of hard to say. I've done that though for practice so like many years ago, the SAT had five answer choices. And so when I really wanted to do like hardcore practice, I would take exercises from those ones and be like here, ABCDE, you know, make it a little harder. But the idea here really is for us to just develop our use of these words. Like we need to know what these words mean, how we're supposed to use them, how we're supposed to punctuate them because I can guarantee that not only will you see many of these phrases or words on your vocabulary questions, but you're also gonna see punctuation questions related to these. And so the goal today was to kind of attack both of those by looking at it in context, you know. So again, pay attention to punctuation as we do some of these exercises because those rules matter. Like you might get a question where they ask you how to punctuate however and you might remember, oh yeah, we said we could do it with a semicolon and a comma. That would be the best answer. So it's important to keep track of some of those things. So the exercises that I sent last week, you know, those vocabulary exercises that we did in class, that's what the SAT looks like. You've got a paragraph, you've got four answers, right? That's what you're gonna see. And on that note, I think it might be a good opportunity for us to just jump into Blue Book for just a second and I can show you, whoops, not my Bluetooth settings, that's not what I wanna show you. Blue Book, let me open that up for a second. As a reminder, if you're taking the May SAT, if you need a device from the test center, you have to get that, you have to register one month before the test. So we still have plenty of time, but that's the rule. If you are gonna bring your own device, then you have until two weeks before the test. So it's the 13th today. We still have until the end of the month to sign up if you're signing up with a device from the test center. So just keep that in mind. We'll get into that more when we have a little more time. But just if you have Blue Book and you wanna get a little more familiar with what you can see, go to the test preview. Just go in here and play around for a minute. You'll see this is what it looks like. Like this is what your test is going to be, this right here. And so you can see that I have all of these options here, A, B, C, D, I'm gonna mark them if I want. You can also click this button and eliminate options so that you can just choose the one you want. You can also zoom in on this, which I highly recommend because this was really tiny and you wanna be able to see all of the text really easily and all of the words really easily. And so this is what you'll see. This would be a vocabulary question. Most logical, precise word of phrase. I see the blank here. Okay, so a librarian noted that pieces by the spoken word poet don't lose their blank nature when printed. It has the same pleasant musical quality. Okay, musical quality must be the word. So I'm gonna just say, okay, it should be melodic because there's a connection to musical quality. And that would be my answer. And I could mark that. And I could erase the other ones. And I can go next. And if I go back, I will see that it remembers which one I eliminated. It'll remember which one I marked. If I go down to the review, I can see that it's marked. The other ones are not. So this is how the test goes, is what you're gonna do. We are gonna do some practice tests. I'm gonna assign some of these for homework because I want you to get some practice with these. But what we're trying to do is get good at every kind of question here so that when we see a question, we know exactly what we have to do. I look at the question first, right? I look at the text. I get the information that I need from here. I didn't even have to really worry about this part or like this part. I just made sure I looked at the part I need right here. And then I mark my answer and I move on. And that's the overall strategy that we want to put to use when we're taking the test. So yeah, that's what your questions are gonna look like. And I wanted to talk a little bit about, again, those questions and how they look and what we need to do with them. So I'm gonna share this with you again real quick. These are the slides that, you know, what we've been using. And I've talked about some of these before. So we already, you know, talked about the punctuation types. And in the last class, I also showed you an example of like a vocabulary question, right? Like we understand that when we see logical and precise word or phrase, we know we're dealing with vocabulary. We read just the part that we need and then we can move on. And so that's our strategy for vocabulary. We've talked about these punctuation types and I left those links as well for you to check out. If you wanna practice your vocabulary or your punctuation, sorry. There's also links for vocabulary. We will use some more of those in the future. So again, the exercises that I gave you, if you were paying attention, you'll notice that we always see the same phrase, which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of standard English. When I see standard English, I know that I'm probably dealing with a punctuation question, but it could also be a grammar question. And we're gonna look at one example of that real quick today before we go and I'll be leaving some homework with grammar questions for you. But just remember, you're gonna see this question a lot. This is how it's phrased. It completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of standard English. It's either gonna be punctuation or grammar when you get those two things. Like you have, when you see standard English, you should think about that. So when I see this question, standard English, I have to pay attention then to what the answers are telling me. Just what we talked about today. Focus on what changes. I look and I see the only thing changing here are the commas. So I know I gotta think about punctuation. I don't need to like consider anything else. I don't care what aluminum oxide is. I don't care where Tampere University in Finland is. Like none of the information in here matters. I'm just trying to analyze punctuation. So I don't even really care about this first part of the text. I'm just gonna read this. I only need to read what I need. I don't care about how glass is made from silicates. I don't care what makes it better. All I care about is punctuation. So Erica Frankberg of Tampere University in Finland used the chemical blank to make a glassy solid. Now, the first example we went through today says, A chemical compound grapple flex. This says D chemical compound. And so I don't need any punctuation when that's the case. When I'm using D, I'm just gonna say what it is. And so I don't need to separate it at all. And so that would make my final answer be D. Okay, but that's all I'm looking at. Really, I don't need to pay any attention to any of the other information here. Just make sure that you're doing that when you're looking at these questions. All right, now we're gonna see the same thing with grammar questions. We're gonna see the same question. Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of standard English? So once again, I wanna make sure I pay attention to that question. And then I wanna take a look at what's going on in the question, in the answer responses. And there's kind of two main forms of grammar questions that you need to pay attention to. First of all, there's the verb subject agreement, which is like, when I have he, she, it, I need to say is, you, they, we, we need to say are. That also changes other verbs. So subject, verb, agreement. And then also pronouns. They love to do questions with pronouns where they ask you what you should use in the blank and they will give you different pronouns or maybe a specific noun. And the key rules are to avoid ambiguity and make sure you are consistent with the text. I wanna show you some examples of these. So let's start with the pronoun example. Like if you have, again, I look at the question, I see that it says standard English. So now I know, okay, I gotta determine what I'm working on. Am I working on punctuation or grammar? I look at the answers, I see that it's clearly grammar because all of these are pronouns. Now, we have those, them, one, it. Two are plural, two are singular, okay? So I wanna take a look at this sentence. This is the part that I need to read, right? Again, I don't care about the first part. That is a waste of my time, I do not need it. So the strativary introduced changes to the shape of a traditional violin, flattening some of the instrument's curves and making blank lighter over all. All right, so what is being made lighter? The violin. The violin, very good. Now, if I'm gonna talk about the violin, am I gonna do it in singular or plural? Singular. Okay, cause that's what it already did, right? I mean, I got this blank, I'm looking for that and I see that it says a traditional violin. So what would be the best word to replace it with? Making it. Yeah, keep it simple, making it lighter over all, beautiful, that's your answer, mark it. That's all we gotta do. Pronoun questions are pretty easy, but here's how they try to mess with you, okay? Like, them could be a tempting answer because you saw the word curves previously and you might be like, ooh, or changes. You might think like, oh, it's gotta be plural because the previous word is plural, curves, them. But are you gonna make curves lighter? Curves don't have weight, like it doesn't make sense. So that's something to watch out for. You always wanna make sure you understand what you are replacing here. So I would say making the violin lighter overall. That would be how I would replace it. So I'm gonna choose it because that's the replacement for a violin. Simple as that. That's one of these cases, right? This is one of the types of grammar questions. Now, here's a case of subject verb agreement and honestly, everybody, these are like actually super easy if you want a big hack to how to do these. If you see this, if you just look over here and you look at your answers and you can see that they are all verbs, okay? We have different forms of the verb to be. One of these is different from the other three. Which one is unique? Which one is different? B? Why? What is different about B? The number, like if it is, she is, but the other ones are plural. Like they are, beware. Okay, you're on the next track. Mohama, were you gonna say the same thing? Yeah. Perfect, yeah. So one of them is a singular verb, right? The other ones are plural or, you know, maybe other cases like you singular, but still. He, she, it is. And so that's gotta be the answer. Like, that's really it. Like, I don't even really need to read anymore because it's the only one that's different that way. So these questions are often really, really easy, actually. But if we go through it again, I would just look at my question, standard English. I know, okay, I gotta check here and make sure I'm dealing with this. Oh, look, it's all verbs. I wonder which one is different. Oh, it's B. Let me just test that real quick, right? So what I wanna do is just focus on this part here, right? And it says they were shocked to realize that the shape of each statue's ears, like the shape of each person's ears is unique. And I can put is in there and it works. Now, the thing to keep in mind here is that is is replete, like connected to the shape of, the shape is singular. It's not ears, plural. And that's how they get you. They get you looking at ears and you think, oh, ears are, right? But this was in the past. So I should put were, right? But no, all this time it was is. That was the best answer because you were trying to match the verb to the word shape. And they've distracted you with these other plural cases. So really just whichever one is like, the one that's different, either the only singular or the only plural option, that's gonna be the right answer like every time. Now, if you somehow have two of each, maybe you have two plurals and two singulars, then you would have to pay attention to the tense, you know? Maybe I should be choosing the one that's in past tense because this is also in past tense. This whole story is about the past. They were found, they were shocked. So maybe I would wanna be consistent there. But most of the time when I see these questions on the test, it's like this. This is an actual example from one of the practice tests. Like this is what you see on the test. And I don't think it's difficult at all. So that's nice. So we're not gonna spend a ton of time on grammar questions, although if you do have any specific things you would like to practice, feel free to let me know. But I generally feel like this is not an area that we need to focus on too much. I am gonna leave us with a little bit of a homework for this though so we can get some practice in it. And then next week, we're gonna pick up where we left off, all right? So that's all I got for today. Are there any questions before we call it a night? Yeah, what exactly is the homework? Like is there a page or... I will send it to our group chat, but I was gonna leave you with the grammar set so that you could do some practice with the grammar exercises and another set of vocabulary because I think it's good for us to keep practicing those. All right, so that's what I wanna do. Anything else? Are we all good? Yes, awesome. I see the thumbs up, love to see it. Okay, well, thank you all so much for being here today. Really appreciate it and hope you have a great week and we'll see you next Monday. Thank you so much for that. Thank you so much. I hope you like it.