Written Communication and Grammar
What the test measures
Grammar and usage items check whether you can write a sentence that is clear and unambiguous - the same skill you need for a report that may be read in court or by a supervisor. Expect questions on subject–verb agreement, pronoun reference, tense consistency, misplaced and dangling modifiers, parallelism, and punctuation (commas, semicolons, apostrophes, quotation marks). Some items ask you to choose the clearest or most concise version of a report-style sentence.
Traps that show up
- Interrupting phrases. "The officer, along with two witnesses, ___ at the scene." The verb agrees with officer, not with the nearest noun.
- Indefinite and collective subjects. Each, every, everyone, neither, the department take singular verbs.
- Apostrophes. Know its vs. it's and officers vs. officer's; plural possessives put the apostrophe after the s.
- Comma splices. Two complete sentences joined by only a comma need a period, semicolon, or conjunction.
- Dangling modifiers. "Walking to the cruiser, the radio crackled" says the radio was walking.
- Longer is not better. The correct option is usually the plainest one that keeps the meaning.
Rule of thumb
Reduce the sentence to subject + verb + object. If the core is correct and every modifier sits beside the word it describes, the sentence is probably right.
Worked example
"Neither of the suspects ___ willing to give a statement." Neither is the subject and is singular; of the suspects is only a prepositional phrase. The answer is was, not were.