Except / Except for

Except

1) They do nothing except complain all the time.
2) The weather was good except in the east.
3) He's not very friendly except when he needs help.
4) I have no answer to his criticism, except to blame the management.

Except for

1) There was complete silence except for the sound of someone whispering.
2) Except for John, the boys were enthusiastic about the party.

Except / except for

1) They did all their homework except / except for English.
2) Everyone was there except / except for Sam.

Question tags

Remember:

positive (+) in one clause, negative (-) in the other

E.g.

1) You have (+) done your homework, haven't (-) you?

2) You come (+) to school by bus, don't (-) you?

3) You saw (+) the burglar, didn't (-) you?

4) You hardly visit (-) your grandmother nowadays, do (+) you?

5) Henry seldom falls (-) ill, does (+) he?

Be careful with cases 4 and 5. The first clause looks positive in each case, but it is actually negative. Explanation: "hardly visit" means "do not often visit" and "seldom falls ill" means "does not often fall ill".

Past Perfect Tense

The past perfect tense should be used when there are two actions. It is used for the action that occurs first.

E.g.1) I brushed my teeth. I left the house hurriedly.
"I brushed my teeth" occurred first, so we should write:
After I had brushed my teeth, I left the house hurriedly.
or
Before I left the house hurriedly, I had brushed my teeth.

2) I did my homework. I went to bed.
Logically, "I did my homework" occurred first, so we write:
After I had done my homework, I went to bed.
or
Before I went to bed, I had done my homework.
or
By the time I went to bed, I had done my homework.

To + infinitive

"To" is usually followed by the infinitive (base form).
E.g.He seems to like ice-cream.
You have to take your medicine three times a day.

Instances when "to" is not followed by the infinitive.
1) I am looking forward to meeting you/ I am looking forward to watching the movie with you.
2) I prefer swimming to jogging.

A clause is a part of a sentence that contains its own verb.
E.g."She went to the market early as she wanted to avoid the crowd.
"She wanted to avoid the crowd" is a clause. It has its own verb -wanted.

Subject-verb agreement

Every - always singular
E.g.
1) Everyone in my class has his own notebook.
2) Every member of the committee attends the meeting every week.

All - depends on whether the noun is countable or not
Countable - singular
Uncountable - plural
E.g.
1) All the salt has been used up. (Salt is not countable, so the singular verb is used.)
2) All the pupils in my class are present today. (Pupils are countable, so the plural verb is used.)

Conditional Tense

The following summarises the rules for conditional tenses:

CASE I
Clause 1: present
Clause 2: will (not) + infinitive
Example: If you try hard, you will succeed.

CASE II:
Clause 1: past
Clause 2: would (not) + infinitive
Example: If you misbehaved, you would be caned.

CASE III:
Clause 1: past perfect
Clause 2: would (not) have + past participle
Example: If you had been there, you would have seen the President.

You try:
1) If Ryan had come earlier, I ______________ (not need) to set up the projector on my own.

2) If it __________ (rain) tonight, we will not go to the Night Safari.

Appositives

(I am writing this in a separate entry so it is more convenient for you when you use the blog for revision. It used to be embedded in another entry.)

An appositive is a noun / noun phrase that refers to another noun right beside it. It provides more details about the noun.

Jiaqi's e.g. (adapted)
"I know the answer!" exclaimed Matthew, the smartest boy in class, from his seat.

"The smartest boy in class" is the appositive in this sentence. Note that it is flanked by two commas.

Eldon's e.g. (adapted)
The lady standing there is my sister, Jane.

"Jane" is the appositive in this sentence. The appositive is preceded by a comma. In this case, we end with a fullstop as we have come to the end of the sentence.

More examples:
Bryan, the monitor of the class, is very neat in appearance.
My best friends, Jocelyn and Samantha, like chocolate ice-cream a lot.
Catherine Lim is the writer of the best-selling book, "The Bondmaid".

Whose

"Whose" shows possession.

E.g. 1) Ryan met the actor whose father sold Char Kway Teow at East Coast.

In the example above, the father "belongs to" the actor. The actor's father sold Char Kway Teow.

E.g. 2) Rachel was the pupil whose mobile phone was confiscated by Mrs H.

In e.g. (2), the mobile phone belongs to the pupil, Rachel. It was Rachel's mobile phone that was confiscated.

We cannot write "James is the most famous badminton player in Singapore whose mother sells chicken rice" because the mother does not "belong to" Singapore. We are not referring to Singapore's mother.

The above sentence should be written as "James, whose mother sells chicken rice, is the most famous badminton player in Singapore."

The mother "belongs to" James. In other words, James' mother sells chicken rice.

Try this:

Joel used to be the fastest runner in school.

His son has been selected to represent Singapore in the Youth Olympic Games.

________________whose _______________.

(Write down the answer in your English notebook. If your answer is correct, you can get a sticker on your book.) :)

Happy weekend.

Either....or.. / Neither....nor.... / main subject / who and whom / semicolon and colon

Grammar rules:

1) Either.....or.... / Neither......nor .....

The second noun determines the verb.

E.g.

Neither Amelia nor her friends like durians.

Neither Jayne nor Naomi has a mobile phone.

Sometimes the sentence may be in the past tense:

Neither James nor Peter watched the match.

(In this case, it does not matter if the noun is singular or plural.)

2) Main subject

Remember that the clause between commas provides extra information. The main subject determines the verb.

E.g.

Nick, as well as Matthew, is good in badminton.

Chris, together with his brothers, walks to school every day.

3) who / whom

Both of these are relative pronouns used to refer to people

who - followed by a verb

whom - followed by a noun / pronoun

exception: to whom - followed by a verb

E.g.

The lady who waved at me is a famous actress.

The boy whom I spoke to was my best friend.

To whom does this file belong?

4) Punctuations

Colon - used to introduce a list

E.g. These are some of my favourite books: Leota's Garden, Anne in Green Gables, Someone Else's Kids and Toto Chan.

Semicolon - used to separate two closely related independent clauses

E.g. Samantha was the only prefect around ; she had to settle the matter.

Note: There are many other usages of the colons and semicolons. If you are interested, take a look at

http://www.gprc.ab.ca/library/Homepage/Help%20With/LSC/LSC%20pdfs/Semicolon%20and%20Colon%20Usage.pdf

Reported Speech

3 points to note:

1) change the tenses

present tense to past tense
past tense to past perfect tense

E.g. "She is at the library now," Tim said.
Tim said she was at the library then.
E.g. "I went to the zoo yesterday," Sam announced.
Sam announced that he had gone to the zoo the day before.

2) change the pronouns

E.g. "I have eaten," Tina said.
Tina said she had eaten.

3) change the time/ place etc

now to then
today to that day etc

E.g. "I will be studying in America next year," she said.
She said she would be studying in America the following year.

TPTP
Tenses
Pronouns
Time
Place

If you are reporting a question, you need to take note of 2 additional points:

1) Switch the positions of the subject and verb
In a statement, the subject appears before the verb.
In a question, the verb appears before the subject.

E.g. "How old are you?" she asked me.
She asked me how old I was.

2) Add "if" if there is no question word.
Question words: Who, what, why, where, what, how

E.g. "Are you going to the library tomorrow?" Mandeal asked Nathan.
Mandeal asked Nathan if he was going to the library the next day.

Having mentioned the 5 golden rules for reported speech, please remember not to change the tenses for other questions on synthesis.