Punctuation

English, Writing. Usually met in years 7 to 11.

Choose the correctly punctuated sentence, covering commas, apostrophes, speech marks, colons and semicolons.

What you practise

Builds from capital letters and full stops to semicolons and brackets. Practice moves up a level when a round goes well and down when it does not.

Each sample comes with the method and the reason every wrong option is wrong. Real practice rounds are ten questions at your level.

Sample question, level 2 of 5

Which sentence is punctuated correctly?

Show the answer and method

Answer: E, They're going to their friend's house.

The method: The correct version is: They're going to their friend's house.

Why the other options are wrong:

A, They're going to there friend's house.: “There” is a place. The friend belongs to them, so “their”.
B, Their going to their friend’s house.: “Their” means belonging to them. Here you need “they are”, which is they’re.
C, Their going to there friends house.: Three words need correcting: they’re, their and friend’s.
D, They're going to their friends house.: An apostrophe is missing: the house belongs to the friend, so friend’s.

Sample question, level 4 of 5

Which sentence is punctuated correctly?

Show the answer and method

Answer: C, She had three goals: to pass her exams, to save money and to travel.

The method: The correct version is: She had three goals: to pass her exams, to save money and to travel.

Why the other options are wrong:

A, She had: three goals to pass her exams, to save money and to travel.: The colon is in the wrong place. It comes after “goals”.
B, She had three goals; to pass her exams, to save money and to travel.: A colon, not a semicolon, introduces a list.
D, She had three goals. to pass her exams, to save money and to travel.: The full stop makes a broken sentence and the next word has no capital.
E, She had three goals: to pass her exams; to save money and to travel.: Use commas between the items, not a semicolon.