Main content
Praxis Core Writing
Course: Praxis Core Writing > Unit 1
Lesson 3: Worked example videos- Within-sentence punctuation | Worked example
- Subordination and Coordination | Worked example
- Parallel structure | Worked example
- Modifier Placement | Worked example
- Shifts in verb tense | Worked example
- Pronoun clarity | Worked example
- Pronoun agreement | Worked example
- Subject-verb agreement | Worked example
- Noun agreement | Worked example
- Frequently confused words | Worked example
- Conventional Expression | Worked example
- Logical comparison | Worked example
- Concision | Worked example
- Adjective/adverb confusion | Worked example
- Negation | Worked example
- Capitalization | Worked example
- Apostrophe use | Worked example
© 2023 Khan AcademyTerms of usePrivacy PolicyCookie Notice
Adjective/adverb confusion | Worked example
Watch David work through a adjective-adverb use question from the Praxis Core Writing test.
Video transcript
- [Instructor] Henry
Professor Longhair Byrd, a profound skilled New
Orleans blues pianist with a distinctive, raspy singing voice, claimed that he developed
his playing style by learning to play on an abandoned piano, missing several keys that
had been left in an alley. Alright, so for this error ID question the first thing I want to do is take out unnecessary descriptors, comma-bounded descriptive phrases, and relative clauses like that have been left in an alley. Let's cross out missing several keys. For now, the sentence ends
at an abandoned piano. Let's go backwards through these. So no error, well, we'll come back to that. See if there is an error. Abandoned piano. Is abandoned being used
correctly to describe piano? Abandoned is an adjective. Piano is a noun. This checks out. This seems like proper usage. Claimed that. Okay, so that, is that the
appropriate word to use here? Well, claimed that is a
conventional expression. It launches into this other clause. He developed, right. Claimed that he developed. So that's appropriately used, the word that, I mean. Now the question of claimed. And we see that claimed, which is in the past
tense, matches developed, which is also in the past tense. I'm gonna give this one an okay. Which brings us to profound skilled. No sometimes you'll see two adjectives with a comma between them. Sometimes not. And if there a comma
between them you could say, oh, his nickname is Professor, maybe he is a profound comma skilled New Orleans blues pianist. But I don't actually think
that's what's going on here, because there is no comma. And because these adjectives
also don't stack on each other the way that like big
blue ball might, right. The ball is big. The ball is blue. But that goes into a whole big
thing about adjective order that isn't really relevant
for our purposes right now. What I think is going on here is that profound is
describing how skilled he was, not the profundity of his playing or the profundity of his person, but rather the profoundness
of his skill, right. Like how skilled he was, very deep. And if that's the case, then this an adjective-adverb confusion. Cause if we're describing the
word skilled with profound, then it can't be profound. It needs to be profoundly, an adverb rather than an adjective. And so I'm going to claim
that this is our answer and to confirm it, let's just take a look at this comma. So here's Henry Professor
Longhair Byrd comma. Here's a whole descriptive
aside saying who he was. If there weren't an underline in here, I would have crossed this off at the beginning of this video. So we've got another comma. So this is a comma-bounded
descriptive aside. This comma is being used correctly. So this is adjective-adverb confusion. It's using an adjective when
it ought to be using an adverb. And the reason that we know this, and this is very subtle, is because there's no comma here. So when you're reading a sentence and you see something underlined and it looks like there's an
adjective describing a verb as in he was rich rewarded
instead of richly, or she bolted sharp to the
door instead of sharply. So that's adjectives instead of adverbs, but consider now instead
adverbs instead of adjectives. Like Clara Schumann was
a famously pianist too. And we would want to take out that L-Y, because really it should
say famous pianist. Famous is describing pianist, just like richly is describing rewarded, just like sharply is describing bolted. These are very context dependent, right. And sometimes they can turn on
as little as a missing comma, but it is a type of
question to be aware of and to watch out for.