Wednesday, September 24, 2014


The English 140’s topics were very interesting and were very helpful. It helps me to get new vocabulary, new information and new strategies. I got many advantages from learning English 140. The biggest advantage what I got was the new vocabularies of new topics in which help me to understand some of the tests that I have made to measure the English language such as the IELTS and the GMAT exams. The TOEFL classes were very helpful because it guide me to follow the correct way of preparing and practice the TOEFL exam. I think the English 140 level is simulates the university system because both of them have common skills.
English 140 helps me to learn many academic skills such as doing the APA references, searching, doing the presentation. The APA references were not easy to do and in the same time learning how to do the APA references is very helpful because we will do this many times in the university. Also, doing presentation was not easy because it takes a lot of time of preparing and bringing the ideas and practices it alone to performance it successfully in front of the audience. The exercises what we did in English 140 had high level of the questions and how to answer this questions requires high skill.

Sunday, September 7, 2014

Omissions and Repetitions


         The easiest part I did was about omissions and repetitions. I think that it is easy to dealing with omissions and repetitions in writing, but in speaking sometimes we did omissions and repetitions without noticing because we talk fast. When I studied in 125 level with Mr. Joshua, he mentioned that the most mistake the students do when they write the essay using omissions and repetitions especially with the subject. For example, they write Norah she is a good students instead write Norah is a good students. I think when we have chance to read what we write we will notice that mistake if we use in our essay.

Order of Cumulative Adjectives

       I faced some difficulty in answered the section which is related to order of cumulative adjectives because I was confused with their choices; I did not know what is the different between them. They gave me these options, Chinese egg six golden roll, six Chinese golden egg rolls, six golden Chinese egg rolls, and I chooses Chinese egg six golden roll. The answer was wrong and I didn’t know what is the correct answer. The lower score I had was in this section because this topic is new for me. After that I know the correct order, which is number/opinion/size/color/pattern/ origin/material. 

Abbreviations

               The interesting section was about abbreviations.  Abbreviations are very helpful because we use it a lot when we take notes from lessening, and we use it in writing. I had an exam and they contain some questions about abbreviations. I learned from the exercise that when we talk about specific year put AD before the year what we talk about and this is old language but in the modern language, it is ok when we put AD after the year. I think when we take notes it is ok to create new abbreviations we use it to save our time some times it will be strange but it will be helpful especially in the university.  

Numbers

     The new thing that I learn from the exercise is, when a number begins a sentence, it should be spelled out, and when a number can be expressed in one or two words, it should be spelled out also. When a number can be expressed in one or two words, we should spell it, and when one number immediately follows another, one should be spelled out and the other presented as a figure. The other topic I familiar with is using Italics. We use the Italics line when we write about names of magazines, names of films, and words that have not become a part of the English language should be italicized.

Sunday, August 31, 2014

                   Using articles with types of noun is necessary because there are a lot of sentences contains different noun and we should know when we must put articles and when we must not add articles. When uncounted noun refers to a concept it is not marked with an article. With uncounted noun refers to an abstract concept, it is not marked with an article an, but it can be marked with a quantifier like some. With Singular proper nouns we do not need to add an article.  The article the is used to mark the regions or specific place.


                  I know that when we talk about specific things in the first time use a and in the other sentence which is talk about same things we use the, but it is not in this easy. We should determine the noun and look at the sentence to know the type of this noun and decide if it is necessary to use the articles or not. It will be different when we have adjectives, I am not sure if we must but a before the adjectives or not. Using a or an with single noun is easy but there are some nouns we don’t have to use the article with!   


                 The mine problem I have in grammar is using articles, and I think this is not just my problem because there are many students have this problem specially Saudis students. The reason is we in Arabic language use the articles in different way not like how to use it in the English language. I should learn more about articles because it is very important in speaking and writing. In this week I did two exercises about articles, and my score is unsatisfactory. I am confused in using a and the and the situation that it doesn’t need to use articles.

               With a singular count noun, we should be marked with the indefinite article. With General categories we don’t have to add the articles, but as I wrote before the article the is used only with nouns that the reader can identify specifically. Articles affect in sentences meaning and it is very useful because some of the important international test contain question about it. In the Michigan test and Toefl test the questions maser the ability and the skills in grammar. Finally,  I really need to do a lot of executrices in this part of grammar.