Six Corrections for a Four-Mark Editing Task
During revision, a student submits an editing task worth 4 marks. The instruction reads: 'The following paragraph has six underlined segments. Four contain errors. Identify and correct only four.' The segments are: (i) Each of the participants were given a folder. (ii) Having finished the experiment, the results were recorded by the students. (iii) The number of applicants have increased since last year. (iv) The committee have decided to postpone the trip. (v) Neither the teacher nor the students were aware of the change. (vi) We had fewer time than we expected. The student corrects all six: were→was, reorders (ii) to 'the students recorded the results', have→has, have→has in (iv), were→was in (v), and fewer→less. The key treats (i), (ii), (iii) and (vi) as the four errors. The teacher must decide how to award 4 marks when two extra changes appear, one of which is an acceptable variant and one a new error.
1. Award a mark out of 4 and justify the decision under the wording 'only four'.
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Award 4/4 for the four correct corrections, with a separate comment on over-answering. The student has correctly handled (i) each...was, (ii) the dangling modifier, (iii) the number...has, and (vi) less time. Those are the four intended errors, and each is clearly right.
The instruction 'only four' is a strategy instruction, not a trap that cancels correct work. Penalising all four because two extra changes were made would misreport the student's grammar. The extra changes should be addressed in feedback: (iv) is an acceptable British English variant, while (v) introduces an error. If the school's marking policy treats extra answers as invalid, the teacher should say so explicitly before the next task; otherwise the fair mark is 4.
2. Explain why (iv) and (v) are different kinds of extra changes.
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In (iv), 'The committee have decided' is acceptable in British English, where collective nouns may take a plural verb when the members are thought of individually. Changing it to 'has' is also acceptable, so the student has not corrected an error; the student has chosen a variant.
In (v), the original 'Neither the teacher nor the students were aware' is already correct, because with neither...nor the verb agrees with the nearer subject, 'students'. Changing 'were' to 'was' creates an error. So one extra change is stylistic and harmless, while the other is substantively wrong. The teacher should not treat them as equivalent.
3. What single rule should the student apply when a segment looks 'slightly off' but not wrong?
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Apply the rule: if two forms are both accepted in standard English, do not count the segment as an error under a 'correct only four' instruction. Test the segment against a clear rule first. For (iv), the rule is that collective nouns vary by variety and context, so it is not a safe error. For (v), the rule of proximity gives 'were', so changing it is unsafe. In an exam, the student should rank the four clearest errors and leave debatable variants alone, rather than trying to correct everything.