Using bi or semi.

Using bi or semi in front of time periods can cause tremendous confusion.
Biweekly means once every two weeks or twice a week. Bimonthly means once every two months or twice a month.In addition, a biweekly publication is issued every two weeks and a bimonthly publication is issued every two months.

Semiweekly means twice a week.Semimonthly means twice a month.
To avoid confusion, you may want to substitute the actual time frame for these confusing terms.For example, say, “I visit my aunt every two weeks,” not “I visit my aunt bimonthly.” If you mean every two weeks, you may also say, “I visit my aunt semimonthly.”

Action & Linking Verbs

This post is taken from my another blog Jouney so far..

I never tried to study grammar part seriously. However, cliche may be it seems, you all know if you are good at EU you will end up solving at least 5-6 question 15 min!. So what is ROI on studying grammar? 15 questions + we assume to solve 5 question correctly = 20 marks i.e. more than half way through to clear the VA cutoff !! Anyway, let me start with discussing some of the grammar concepts that I have learnt and used in earlier CATs. I assume peopel are aware of basics such as What is a verb? What is a noun? so let me take you all to discuss what type verbs we mainly have. There are many types of verbs but i will broadly categorise them into only two types and are :

1) Action verb

2) Linking verb

Let us first see what do you mean by linking verb,

A verb that acts as a linking between a subject and direct object would be
termed as linking verb.

Linking verbs are a lot simpler to understand because there are a few verbs that are always identified as a linking verb. The list goes as follows..

is Was been

Am were being

Are be

These are the verbs, whenever they occur, mostly they are linking verbs.

Action verbs are the verbs which indicates action (Verb does the same, then how it is different?) There is a quick trick to identify action verbs from rest of the verbs that I will discuss in the next coming post. Firstly let me discuss how should we identify between Verbs & verb phrase??

Let us discuss this with an example.

The Cake tasted delicious

Any one would think the TESTED is an actiion verb?? let us check. A simple trick out here is,

insert a form of linking verb after the verb you have identified, if after inserting this, sentence still makes sense then verb is linking
verb !!!

Let is insert a from of linking verb WAS. Now the sentence becomes :

The Cake WAS delicious, Makes sense?? YES, So TASTED is not an action verb but is a linking verb. Here I have explained a very simple trick to solve questions based on verb and I think this post will surely make things clear.

Using numbers as an adjective.

Many a times you will come across a situation where you want to convey a thought involving some number. For e.g. Football field is 110 yards in length. Apparently, there are two types of writing styles that you can observe.
A) Nurses work 12 hours shift
B) Nurses work 12-hours shift
Which one is correct?
The Rule: A simple rule that can be used to avoide a mistake in such types of questions is you have to determine if the number is acting as an adjective. If it is, then hyphenate it!
Following examples will clarify more on this.

a) Nurses work 12-hours shift - Number 12 is acting as an adjective, so hyphenate it.
b) Suzanne won the race by 25 yards - 25 is not acting as an adjective, so don't hypenate.

So simply determine if the number is acting as an adjective. If yes, hypenate.

Ameya

VA madness goes live

Happy Birthday VA Madness on internet!

Ok, can you people think if above written statement is correct in grammatical usage? or should it be "Happy Birthday VA Madness on internet". Seems simple but abstruse right? Well, if you have invented yet another internet then above written statement is correct. So as of now, as there is only one internet, the statement is wrong. It should be written without an exclamation mark.

I think this gives you a brief idea about the purpose of this blog. Inadvertently, I am penchant towards VA and usage. So i would try pouring in some of the nice VA, EU and grammar concepts that I learnt. So Happy Birthday VA Madness on Internet.

Ameya