Five-minute proofreading with repeated apostrophe errors
A student's 120-word review contains these sentences: 'Alot of people thinks that tecnology is benefical, however it can cause stress.' 'Students mobiles should be turned off during class.' 'Its important that teachers explain the rules clear.' 'I dont think we should ban them becouse they are useful.' The task tests 'spelling, punctuation and accuracy'. The marking guide deducts for errors that impede communication and for repeated errors, but does not penalise British/American variation. The student writes in pen and cannot use a dictionary. He has five minutes to check. He usually reads only for meaning, not for form. His teacher wants him to catch the highest-value errors first.
1. List the errors in the four sentences by category (spelling, punctuation, agreement, word form), and correct them.
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Sentence 1: 'Alot' → 'A lot' (spelling: two words); 'thinks' → 'think' (agreement: 'people' is plural); 'tecnology' → 'technology' (spelling); 'benefical' → 'beneficial' (spelling); the comma before 'however' creates a comma splice → use a full stop or semicolon: '... beneficial. However, it can cause stress.'
Sentence 2: 'Students mobiles' → 'Students' mobiles' or better 'Students' mobile phones' (missing possessive apostrophe; the phones belong to the students).
Sentence 3: 'Its' → 'It's' (missing apostrophe in the contraction of 'it is'); 'clear' → 'clearly' (word form: adverb modifying 'explain').
Sentence 4: 'dont' → 'don't' (missing apostrophe); 'becouse' → 'because' (spelling).
The most communication-blocking errors are 'tecnology', 'benefical' and 'becouse'; the apostrophe errors are the most repeated, which matters because the guide penalises repetition.
2. Design a five-minute checking routine for this student that targets the errors he actually makes.
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He should stop reading for meaning and read for form in a fixed order.
Minute 1 - apostrophes. Scan every word containing 's': is it a plural, a possessive or a contraction? Check 'Students', 'Its', 'dont'. Ask: can I expand it to 'it is'? If yes, write 'it's'. Can I replace it with 'of'? If yes, write 'students''.
Minute 2 - subject–verb agreement. Underline every subject and verb. Check 'people thinks' → 'people think'.
Minute 3 - common misspellings. Look only for words he knows he misses: 'alot', 'becouse', 'tecnology', 'benefical'. Learn these four as a personal list before the exam.
Minute 4 - commas before 'however'. If 'however' joins two full clauses, use a full stop or semicolon, not a comma.
Minute 5 - adverb forms. Check adjectives after verbs: 'explain the rules clear' → 'clearly'.
Reading backwards sentence by sentence helps him see form rather than content.
3. Which two error types should he correct first if the exam penalises repeated errors, and why?
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First: apostrophes. He makes three separate apostrophe errors ('Students', 'Its', 'dont') in 120 words, so this is a repeated pattern rather than an isolated slip. The marking guide explicitly penalises repeated errors, and the rule is quick to apply: expand contractions and test possession with 'of'. Fixing this one rule could remove three deductions.
Second: common spelling. 'Alot', 'tecnology', 'benefical' and 'becouse' are high-frequency words in school writing, and misspellings are conspicuous. They are also finite: he can memorise a short personal list the night before. Agreement ('people thinks') matters too, but it appears once here and is less likely to recur across every paragraph than apostrophes and basic spelling.
The order is therefore based on frequency and fixability, not on which error looks most serious in isolation.