Common Core Skills Practice:

Grammar Lesson #10

Adapted from resources by Paul Brians available on:
Washington State Univ.: http://public.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/errors.html
Youre and your
! Youre is always a contraction of you are.
There are no other uses!
! Your generally comes before nouns and
pronouns to show possession.
Practicing Usage:
Doing nothing is very hard to do; you never
know when ______ finished. ~ Leslie Nielsen
He said it was unbelievable that _____ dog
actually looked like that.
Its and Its
! Its is a contraction of it is or it has. There
are no other uses!
! Its is like your, it is a possessive pronoun. It
is used when you need to demonstrate a
gender neutral possession.
Practicing Usage:
The great white shark avoids chasing ____ prey
through the coral reef.
With the humidity at nearly 100 percent, ____
beginning to rain.

To and too
! Too indicates also (Me too.) and more
than necessary (Bobbi talks too much.).
! To indicates usage as an infinitive verb
(He likes to boogie.) and as a preposition
(The kids ran to the field.).
Practicing Usage:
Im glad ___ hear that youre doing well.
Sushi is ___ expensive to eat daily.
Theyre, there, and their
! Theyre is a contraction of they are.
! Their shows possession, just like its.
! There is naming a location.
Practicing Usage:
______ plans to leave this weekend have been
cancelled.
Experience is the name that everyone gives to
______ mistakes. ~ Oscar Wilde
The extra supplies are in that cabinet over
______.
Whos and whose
! Whos is always a contraction of who
is. There are no other uses!
! Whose is the possessive form of who
and generally is placed before a noun.
Practicing Usage:
The police have a suspect in the case of
the restaurant _____ money was stolen.
_____ responsible for drinking all of the Dr.
Pepper?
Then and than
! The usage of then relates to time and is
used mainly as an adverb that can mean
afterwards, in that case, or at that time.
! Than is used as a comparison and often
used with more, less, and fewer.
Practicing Usage:
Gerard had a healthier physique back ____.
Money is better ____ poverty, if only for
financial reasons. ~ Woody Allen

Defining alot, a lot, and allot
! The word alot doesnt exist. Period. This is a
common spelling error.
! A lot is both a noun, meaning a large amount,
or an adverb meaning to a great extent.
! Allot is a verb meaning to divide/distribute.
Practicing Usage:
Bret has _____ of Star Wars action figures.
In the cafeteria, they _____ one serving of
milk to every student.
Using apostrophes in plurals
Do not use an apostrophe with a plural word
unless it meets one of the rules below:
Rules of apostrophes:
1. To replace missing letters in a contraction.
2. To show possession.
3. In expressions of time.
4. Plural forms of unfamiliar abbreviations, as
well as letters and numbers.