Writing and Grammar
Writing and Grammar
The Writing and Grammar domain tests Standard Written English in the register police reports require: correct sentence structure, punctuation, agreement, pronoun reference, modification, parallelism, and concise, objective wording. Items often present a sentence with one error or ask you to choose the clearest revision. You are judged on formal correctness, not on how dramatically you can tell the story.
Core rules
- Find the main subject and verb; ignore prepositional phrases when checking agreement.
- Join two independent clauses with a comma plus a coordinating conjunction or with a semicolon. A comma alone creates a comma splice.
- Keep modifiers next to the word they describe; a dangling modifier has no logical subject.
- Make lists and comparisons parallel: “interviewing witnesses, collecting evidence, and writing reports.”
- Keep tense consistent; use past tense for completed incidents in reports.
- Cut redundancy and wordiness: “returned back,” “at this point in time,” “due to the fact that.”
- Use formal, neutral tone; avoid slang, sarcasm, and unsupported opinion.
Worked example
Original: “Responding to the call, the officer's flashlight illuminated the rear door.”
Reasoning: “Responding” describes the officer, but the sentence subject is “flashlight,” so the modifier dangles. Revision: “Responding to the call, the officer illuminated the rear door with her flashlight.”
Second item: “The suspect fled, the officer pursued.” This is a comma splice. Correct it with a semicolon (“The suspect fled; the officer pursued.”) or a conjunction (“The suspect fled, and the officer pursued.”).
Traps that cost marks
Subject-verb agreement across interrupting phrases; each/every as singular; neither/nor agreeing with the nearer subject; its versus it's; affect versus effect; then versus than; apostrophe errors in plurals; and overcorrecting a sentence that is already grammatical.