Published on 12, July, 2020
Here is an update of how my various employment advisors are still struggling to get me into paid work.
My latest advisor sent me to a training company who insisted I take their online functional English test.
What a nightmare, I tried my best and my best was a disaster.
Here's a photo of my results screen.
41% for spelling, punctuation and grammar! I never realised I was that bad.
Some of the questions were torture. Such as the comma question, I was given a paragraph to read and told to find the five comma mistakes, where commas where either missing or superfluous. Oh my first reading I couldn't identify a single mistake.
Hey, hun! First of all, you should be proud of that 83% for the reading section! And, regarding spelling and grammar, don't you worry about that! Star using [removed by mod], you'll see improvement in no time! Even as a native speaker, I find English spelling notoriously difficult to master. Just give it some time and patience, and you'll start to see noticeable progress! Ah, another thing! Try to be consistent about using British or American spellings in your writing! I hope this helps!
:).
It's good to hear from you again. I hope you're OK.
The test was a nightmare, but I actually did ok. Which is the opposite of what I did at school, where I felt happy after English exams but the results themselves were a disappointment and I usually failed.
Here my final score on their scale was a 2.4 with me touching a 3 a couple of times (see the graph). Apparently 3 is the highest score.
Their scale goes.
I was placed on level 2.4 after this test.
Originally, my latest career advisor referred me to them to do a basic business administration course. And they insisted I do the English test first.
...Quite frankly, they should have given Your Good Self a "Mathematics" Test instead of an *online* English Test - then You would have succeeded so fantastically that they would have run away in utter terror at Your abillity. (!!!)
As for Myself, I would not like this kind of test at all, although My own "English" is quite good. I would supect *trick* questions, where context is not stated; such as where to put the commas or apostrophes or mispellings, in order to mean different things.
e.g. let us eat Rabbits! - vs. - let's eat, Rabbits! - vs. - lettuce eat, Rabbits!
...Um, Glad Tidings from Myself to You, anyway...!
I've had something similar happen to me in the past: I was in my GCSE English Language exam and couldn't remember how to spell "were". Bearing in mind throughout my early childhood I was hyperlexic, and as a teenager was, arguably, the most gifted in my school when it came to essay-writing. It was embarrassing, perplexing and really stressful to say the least, and after four attempts at writing "where" and knowing that didn't look right, I settled for "had been" and moved on.
I've also found since my previous burnout a few years ago, I've really struggled with my spelling and punctuation. It always used to come so naturally to me—to the extent I never had to learn or think how—it was just instinctive, whereas now I'm constantly going back and adding in commas and such like in a really inelegant and unnatural way (for me, at least). It's helping being exposed to such gifted writers in these forums as a reminder of how it should be done, so a big "thank you" to all the pendants out there. I love you guys. :-)
P.S. I've tried really hard to punctuate the above, but it doesn't quite look or feel right. Like I say, I've lost my instincts, so please feel free to correct if I've missed and/or misused anything!
I've never thought I was that awful, though certainly not good, but I definitely do end up baffled for no reason at times... I just had to write "square" and I had to google it to make sure I'd spelt it right as it just looked wrong, and even the spelling in Google didn't look right. It's suddenly starting to look more correct now but for some reason the Q and U just seemed weirdly out of place and wrong even though I know thats how they go...
love it love it :)
Oh! Yes. I've just noticed my spelling error. And a comma, where I should have used a full stop!
I'm embarrassed.
aidie said:everyone is bad at grammar, and those good at it are usually annoying
Indeed, so my apologies in advance for being a bit of a grammar pedant in what follows.
"Functional Skills English"? Surely that should be "Functional English Skills", "Functional Skills - English", or "Skills (Functional English)", or maybe there's a dialect or jargon that I've never heard of called "[Functional Skills] English" - the seemingly random word order in the screenshot makes it a bit hard to tell.
"English Initial Assessment"? Well, it's nice to know that your "initial assessment" will be a patriotic one, but what is being assessed?
"Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar"? Personally, I think that an "Oxford comma" before the "and" would be so much nicer.
Maybe people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones!
The only spelling mistake in your post is quite obviously just a typo. I could correct a handful of technical grammar errors if I were being picky (I won't, because that would be incredibly rude - and someone might then be tempted to correct mine!). However, I certainly don't recall ever having trouble understanding any of your posts - and I can't think what else "functional" might mean in relation to language!
Still, if your English is really that bad, they'd better rush you onto a remedial English course sharpish - for your sake, of course; nothing to do with the big fat cheque from the DWP!
everyone is bad at grammar, and those good at it are usually annoying :)