Advanced English 9/English 9

Mrs. Higginbotham

Capitalization: Diagnostic Test

Exercise A: Correcting Sentences by Capitalizing Words

Identify the word or words that should be capitalized in each of the following sentences. If a word should be capitalized, highlight the word with your YELLOW highlighter. If a sentence is correct, write C.

  1. The judges of the essay contest are Miss Helen Fry and Mr. C.M. Gonzalez.
  2. Before fishing on Sylvan Lake in Custer State Park, we bought bait at a stand on Highway 385.
  3. The travel section of the New YorkTimes featured an excellent article on Jewel Cave National Monument.
  4. The Industrial Revolution drastically changed American life in the 1800s.
  5. During World War II, Gloria’s grandmother was a volunteer for the Red Cross.
  6. The bomber the troops called Lady Luck now sits in the park on Fifty-third Street, two blocks west of the Methodist church.
  7. Last August, Grandpa Henry and Aunt Frances took an Amtrak express train from New York to Chicago.
  8. Students at Adams High School may take Spanish, geometry, and Chemistry I as sophomores.
  9. In English class we compared the tones of Grant Wood’s painting American Gothic and Willa Cather’s novel One of Ours.
  10. After Hurricane Allen struck, the governor declared the region a disaster area.

Exercise B: Proofreading a Paragraph for Correct Capitalization

Capitalize the word or words that should begin with a capital letter in each sentence in the following paragraph. If a word should be capitalized, highlight the word with your YELLOW highlighter. If a sentence contains no errors, write C.

(11) Early reports about this area arrived back East some two hundred years ago from explorers and trappers such as William Clark and Jim Bridger. (12) Their accounts of boiling mud cauldrons and water spewing hundreds of feet in the air seemed unbelievable. (13) Many people laughed at the native people’s stories about angry gods who turned trees to stone and caused tremors and thundering noises. (14) Yet settlersavoided the Yellowstone area and its native inhabitants, the Shoshone, until after the American Civil War. (15) Then, adventurers and local leaders explored the area and persuaded Dr. Ferdinand Hayden, director of the U.S. Geological Survey, to see the wonders himself. (16) In 1871, Dr. Hayden surveyed the region with an artist and a photographer, who recorded the amazing sights they saw. (17) In March of 1872, Congress voted to set aside 2.2 million acres as Yellowstone National Park. (18) Since then, visitors have taken millions of snapshots of such features as the famous geyser Old Faithful. (19) When Mom, Dad, and I visited park last summer, we were amazed at the geysers, mudpots, and other sights. (20) Next summer, I’m going to take a course in geology offered by the Yellowstone Institute.

From Elements of Writing