Grammar and spelling are essential components of your ASVAB exam, remaining vital to exams such as word knowledge and paragraph comprehension. This section details some useful techniques you can adopt to radically improve both of these crucial abilities.
Posted in 6th December, 2014 | General ItemsImproving Your Grammar and Spelling
Improving Your Grammar and Spelling
Having a comprehensive understanding of your basic grammar and spelling skills is of utmost importance to your future role as a military professional. It will be up to you, for example, to write appropriate and accurate reports of a given situation. The better vocabulary and grammar you harvest, the better the report is likely to be. Furthermore, grammatical errors are a major distraction for many people. Imagine, for example, reading a report replete with errors such that you can hardly finish the piece in a smooth and efficient way. You need to avoid these errors. This section will introduce you to many of the critical methods you need to practice in order to improve your grammar and spelling, thereby magnifying your chance of success at the ASVAB exam.
As a budding military officer, you’ll invariably come into contact with words you’re not familiar with. For instance, how many of you will know what an ‘abjuration’ is, or what it means to ‘exonerate’ someone? This learning curve requires effort, and this effort can take the form of getting used to the following:
- When you encounter an unfamiliar word, look up its meaning in a dictionary and write down the word as well as sample sentences in your notepad.
- Make a conscious effort to speak the word in as many sentences as you can.
The combined effect of these two practices will not only help you to become familiar with the written word but, more vitally perhaps, it’ll assist in your spoken ability as well. If you only learned two new words a day, this would amount to over 60 words a month or 720 words a year! Thus, following these two simple techniques will have a marked effect on your spoken and written word; an effective technique to boost your ASVAB test study.
Importance of Reading
The fluidity of speech and text is radically enhanced through the simple practice of reading more often. Of course, this doesn’t mean you’ve got to delve into Ulyssees or War and Peace, but what it does mean is that even reading a small amount of text each day will intensify your learning potential. There are an innumerable number of benefits to taking this approach:
- Reading will make you familiar with the proper use of grammar and spelling. The more you see the correct method, the more likely you are to emulate it unknowingly.
- Reading will improve your ability to grab new words or phrases. This enhances your speech particularly if you make an effort to write down, learn and practice them.
It doesn’t really matter what form your reading takes, but try to choose a valuable resource and not some flimsy teenage blog or some other such disreputable source. Even if you read only fifteen minutes per day, this amounts to an astonishing 8 hours a month! This extra reading will also improve your reading comprehension skills with a greater awareness of understanding a large body of text. It will also inform you of the correct way to write a standard report: structuring according to a solid introduction, main body, and effective conclusion. Therefore, the wealth of benefits that reading confers makes it an absolute must in your endeavours to improve grammar, spelling, and reading comprehension. Several of the ASVAB tests depend on understanding the meaning of text – meaning harvesting this skill is of utmost importance.
The Write Approach
This blends in with all of the methods hitherto discussed. Writing allows you to put what you’ve learned into practice and therefore permanently cements new words and phrases in your mind. Additionally, it has the benefit of reinforcing different grammatical rules, ensuring you don’t make the same mistake twice. You could, of course, take the alternative opinion and retain new grammar rules only in your mind; however, this approach is much more likely to result in disaster come examination day. If you really want to improve your grammar and spelling, you’ll need to take the time to practice them in some shape or form, maybe through partaking in a mock ASVAB quiz for example.
So you’re going to respond that you’re not a natural writer and you’d do a bad job anyway? Well, this isn’t true for one thing. You don’t need to be the next J.K. Rowling to practice grammar and spelling rules – you just need to make an effort. Moreover, the effort shouldn’t overdo it! Even the simple practice of writing new words in a contextualised form will be enough to enhance your ability. For example, let’s take the word ‘Injunction’. If we see this word written down yet don’t understand the word; then we should take note of the word in the following way:
When you learn new vocabulary, always take into consideration how to use it, and not just singularly focussing on what the word means. This holistic approach will bear greater dividends.
Injunction
Meaning: An order, usually judicial, requires a person or persons to do a particular act or to avoid doing a particular act.
Example: “The court dismissed the complaint and therefore decided an injunction did not need to be issued as the defendant was not at risk to anyone.”
The section titled ‘Example’ is illustrative of our attempts to write and practice the word. Try to come up with your own examples while avoiding copying and pasting those you find on the Internet or in dictionaries. This extra effort of arriving at your own example will help you to remember it more effectively. Efficient ASVAB testing means you’ll become more familiar with these words as time progresses.
Of course, you could always make a greater effort which would return greater dividends. You could, for example, initiate a free blog about a subject of your interest, incorporating all the new words and phrases into each blog post. It would be even wiser to begin a blog on police test study, that way you learn about the subject itself as well as improving your grammar and spelling. The opportunities are endless. You choose your own preferred method but make sure you stick to it – ensuring a consistent learning strategy over the course of your studies.
What Next?
Improving your grammar and spelling doesn’t need to be a chore. We’ve looked at some of the simplest strategies you can employ in this regard, some of which only require fifteen minutes worth of time each day. This small investment over several months will not only improve your spoken word, but will augment your written word as well as your understanding of grammatical rules. The hard part is, as always, making that first effort. Once you get into the rhythm of tackling the subject piece by piece, you’ll notice a remarkable difference in your skills over the long term; with the relevant ASVAB tests proving to be less gruelling than you originally anticipated.
Grammar and spelling are invariably linked to vocabulary. Learn more about techniques you can adopt to enhance your lexicon.
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