Guardian Grammar Quiz

 Do these sorts of quizzes really help teachers or students or do they add to confusion about the way the English language is structured?

While I have no problem with many of the questions, why have they included the two below?


Question 5
Which of the following sentences uses a subordinate clause at the beginning?

1.  Male penguins keep warm by huddling together
2.  In order to stay alive, male penguins keep warm by huddling together
3.  Huddling together helps male penguis to stay alive and keep warm

You only have the option of ticking one sentence, yet two begin with subordinate clauses.  Number 2 starts with an adverbial subordinate clauses, using the conjunction 'In order to'.  No problem if this was the only subordinate clause.  However, number 3 also starts with a subordinate clause.  'Huddling together' is a nominal clause filling the subject slot of the main clause.  There is also a nominal non-finite (infinitive) clause filling the object slot and, in addition, this has a compound structure as it contains the verbs 'stay' and 'keep' linked by the co-ordinating conjunction 'and'. 

 Huddling together       helps       male penguins to stay alive and keep warm
        Subject (S)       Verb (V)                         Object (O)

The nominal clause, 'Huddling together' is created by using the non-finite (present participle) form of the verb 'huddle'.

So this sentence has four verbs (huddling, helps, to stay and (to) keep), making four clauses in all.  I do hope this is not what we will find in the Year 6 grammar and punctuation test!

I also have concern about question 12.
Identify the main clause in the following sentence:
The rescuers, who were drafted in by the officials, were stunned by the destruction.
1.  The rescuers
2.  The rescuers were stunned
3.  Who were drafted in by the officials

Why do they not include the instrumentative 'by the destruction' as part of the main clause?  Surely the whole sentence, with  the relative (subordinate) clause removed, would read 'The rescuers were stunned by the destruction.'  This is a passive equivalent of the sentence 'The destruction stunned the rescuers.'

Testing children's knowledge of grammar is not going to make them better writers and, in my opinion, we shouldn't be wasting valuable teaching time on grammar tests.  Far better to explore, discuss and experiment with the wonderful variety of structures that English provides and consider how we can use these to create and vary effects for our readers.  Our language is very complex and to try and simplify it for tests is a complex business in itself.  Those who are driven to provide test materials and worksheets for teachers and children have a real responsibility to make sure that the aspect they are testing is unambiguous and the question only tests the structure they intended to test.