Quick Quiz Answer Key
1) Each of the following sentences features the use of none, one, or two hyphens. Which sentences feature the correct grammatical use of hyphens?
- a) INCORRECT
- CORRECT version = GEERing Up is a non-profit organization that promotes science, engineering and technology to youth in the Greater Vancouver area.
- b) CORRECT
- c) CORRECT
- d) INCORRECT
- CORRECT version: The intellectually stimulating workshops enable students to gain experience in experiments and are designed to increase interest in science, engineering and technology.
- f) INCORRECT
- CORRECT version: The two-hour workshops are designed to give kids a taster, with the more comprehensive week-long camps for older students.
2) There should be a total of three hyphens in the following two sentences. Place them where they should go:
- Although the workshops only last for two hours at a time, they feature many different fast-paced activities to engage students. As well as trying to teach science, engineering and technology, GEERing Up’s mission is also to encourage students to develop social skills and adopt a happy-go-lucky approach to performing experiments; for this reason, curiosity is encouraged as much as academic success.
3i) Place one hyphen in the sentence below to give it a completely different (but still grammatically correct) meaning.
- a) In one of the activities, the volunteer showed students how to use a heavy-metal detector to find coins in the soil.
3ii) Why does it matter whether this hyphen is or is not included?
- In the second example, only heavy metals would be detected, whereas in the first one the metal detector is described as being heavy (to lift/carry) but you could assume that it would detect any metals.
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