Tips to Score High Marks in Class 10 English Board Exams Using Correct Grammar
Get high Marks in Class 10 English Board Exams – With the Board exam just a few months away for some students, many are confused as to what could potentially lead to deduction of their marks even if their answers are ‘theoretically’ correct. Grammar is one thing that either makes or breaks your answer and this is noted especially by the checkers. With the teachers having to check hundreds of answer sheets in one sitting, wrong grammar can be really annoying, since it changes the meaning of the answer and disrupts the flow of reading. It also makes the checker doubt the credibility of your answer, even if the context is correct. This could cause you to have a massive deduction of marks, thus affecting your percentage.
Using correct grammar is an important aspect of writing that can help students score high in Class 10 English. Here are some tips for using correct grammar to improve your writing:
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Here are the 6 Important Tips to Get High Marks in Your Class 10 English Board Exams 2023
- Use Proper Sentence Structure
- Use the Correct Verb Tense
- Use Proper Noun
- Use Punctuation Correctly
- Use Correct Verb Form
- Use Correct Subject-verb Agreement
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Use proper sentence structure:
Possibly the most important aspect when writing your answer, using proper sentence structure can determine whether your sentence makes sense or not.
Make sure that your sentences are complete, with a subject, verb and sometimes an object. Often the subject of the sentence comes first, followed by the verb and lastly the object.
For example, The British will arrive next week. Here, ‘The British’ is the subject, ‘will arrive’ is the verb. Using both the subject and the verb appropriately helps in adding sense to the sentence.
Another important aspect is to avoid fragments and run-on sentences. An example of a Fragment can be as follows:
“Because of the storm.”
On its own, because of the storm does not form a complete thought and leaves us wondering as to what happened because of the storm. Therefore, we need to add more to the sentence to complete the thought and make it legible:
“Because of the storm, the roads were closed.”
Now, in the above sentence the fragment has become a dependent clause and is attached to a subject and a verb, therefore completing the thought.
Similarly Run-on sentences are to be avoided when writing in the exam as well. Run-on sentences occur when two or more complete sentences are connected improperly, making the sentence seem longer and improper in nature.
For example:
“Shah Jahan built the Taj Mahal he built it for Mumtaz.”
In the above sentence two sentences are improperly joined together, i.e.
“Shah Jahan built the Taj Mahal.”
“He built it for Mumtaz.”
To make the sentence proper you can either use a full stop/period, a semicolon, a comma, a coordinating conjunction (and,but,etc) or a subordinating conjunction (because, unless, although, etc).
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2. Use the correct verb tense:
Using correct verb tense in the sentences when writing our exam, helps the teacher not only in understanding the context of your answer better but also helps the teacher in determining the timeline that you are referring to, especially when writing an answer in Social Science. Use the appropriate verb tense for the context of your writing.
Use the past tense to describe events that have already happened and the present tense to describe events that are happening now.
For example, when writing an answer in social science, past events should be written as follows:
The Jallianwala Bagh Massacre occurred in 1919.
Here occurred is past tense indicating that the event happened in the past.
Now if we had used present tense then the following sentence would be written :
The Jallianwala Bagh Massacre occurs in 1919.
It is to be noted that the aforementioned sentence is grammatically incorrect, since the verb used is present tense, but the year of the massacre mentioned is in the past, creating a confusion and an improper sentence.
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3. Use proper nouns:
Proper nouns are nouns that are used to specify a specific person, place or thing. They can include personal names, place names, name of organizations, title of films, books, other media, etc. All the subjects except Mathematics have a variety of different names of historians, scientists, researchers, poets, writers, organizations, places,etc in each and every chapter. Using proper nouns is vital when writing an answer since they specify whatever you are trying to convey.
For example,
The company first had interest in India due to its spices.
The above sentence can cause confusion in the minds of the reader and the teacher checking the answers, since the reader will have no idea as to which company is being referred to in the sentence. The noun “company” here is a common noun and can thus, refer to any company as per the teacher’s thinking, and therefore can lead the student to lose their marks due to lack of clarity in the sentence.
The East India Company first had interest in India due to its spices.
Now, in the above sentence the common noun “Company” has been changed with the proper noun “East India Company”. This would thus, provide clarity to the sentence and would add more credibility to the sentence due to its factual accuracy. Moreover, specifying the name of the company gives the teacher an understanding that the student does know about the company and the contact of their answer.
In addition to using proper nouns, make sure to capitalize proper nouns, such as names of people, places, and organizations.Capitalizing the nouns obviously is grammatically correct but when writing an answer, capitalizing provides a stark contrast to all the small letters and makes the place, organization, name, etc easily visible to the teacher amongst all the other words, and thereby highlighting the importance of the word and proper noun.
For instance,
The east india company first had interest in India due to its spices.
The East India Company first had interest in India due to its spices.
Here in the first sentence the proper noun, i.e., East India Company can easily be skimmed over by the teacher, which might lead her to believe that the student is not aware of it, leading to deduction of marks. On the other hand, in the second sentence due to capitalizing the company’s name is easily visible and would not be missed by the teacher in addition to it being grammatically correct as well.
4. Use punctuation correctly:
Using punctuations might seem unnecessary to some, but in reality it actually guides the flow of the sentences. They help in structuring and containing your ideas. Use punctuation marks, such as periods, commas, and quotation marks, to clarify the meaning of your writing and to help your reader understand your ideas.
For example,
Wilhelm Wundt is considered as the “father of modern psychology” he founded the first laboratory of psychology in 1879
You can easily observe that the above sentence is correct in context but it clearly does not make sense. When reading this sentence, you would read it in one breath and that the above sentence contains two different sentences though they both are of the same idea. Also, the above sentence lacks a full stop, which indicates that this is not the end of the sentence, deeming it incomplete in nature.
To grammatically correct the sentence we would have to add punctuation:
Wilhelm Wundt is considered as the “father of modern psychology”; He founded the first laboratory of psychology in 1879.
The semicolon and full stop thus complete the sentence.
5. Use correct verb forms:
Using the correct verb is another aspect that is extremely important when writing an answer. Make sure to use the correct verb form for the subject of your sentence. For example, use “is” for singular subjects and “are” for plural subjects.
Using incorrect verb form can confuse the reader and make it difficult for them to understand the context of your answer, again causing you to lose marks
6. Use the correct subject-verb agreement:
In simple language, subject-verb agreement is when the subject and verb in the sentence use the same number, person,gender, etc. So, basically if the subject is singular, then singular form of the verb will be used and same applied for a plural subject. You need to make sure that the verb in your sentence agrees with the subject in terms of number.
For example, “The cat is sleeping” is correct, but “The cats are sleeping” is incorrect.
This is done to make sure that the sentence is grammatically correct and that there is no confusion for the reader/teacher checking your exams. Not having proper subject-verb agreement in sentences would cause confusion for the teacher checking your exams with regards to the differences in the number, person,gender of the subject and verb used be it either in singular or plural. A correct example of subject verb agreement in both singular and plural is as follows:
- The results (singular) demonstrates (singular) that..
- These results (plural) demonstrate (plural) that..
By following these tips and paying attention to your grammar, you can improve the clarity and effectiveness of your writing and score high in Class 10 English.