Q&A - PSLE English

[Zack7]

mumworks:

Hi


I am confused for this question :

The chairman of the debate competition advised the two teams to speak (loud/loudly/louder/ more loudly) in the finals as the audience gave feedback that the debaters did not speak loud enough in the semi finals.

The school teacher told my son that both \"louder\" and \"loudly\" can be the answer but not \"more loudly\" ?

Anyone can help ? Thanks

languages normally don't have right and wrongs. most of it are just conveying different meanings.

in my opinion, loudly/louder/more loudly are all correct.

but if i were to be more picky, i would say loudly is wrong too

because the 2nd part of the sentence implies that a comparative word is needed in the 1st part of the sentence.

so louder and more loudly would be 'more correct'

but if it was up to me, i would use louder

because louder makes the sentence more concise and smooth flowing.

[atutor2001]

mumworks:

Hi

I am confused for this question :

The chairman of the debate competition advised the two teams to speak (loud/loudly/louder/ more loudly) in the finals as the audience gave feedback that the debaters did not speak loud enough in the semi finals.

The school teacher told my son that both \"louder\" and \"loudly\" can be the answer but not \"more loudly\" ?

Anyone can help ? Thanks

Hi mumworks
I am surprised by what the teacher had told your son that \"more loudly\" is not allowed.

\"more loudly\" is an adverb which is used to modify a verb e.g. \"you need to speak (speak is a verb) more loudly\"

\"louder\" is an adjective, which is used to modify a noun e.g. the noise (noise is a noun) is louder now. However, in informal writing, we can use \"louder\" as an adverb to replace \"more loudly\".

Therefore, \"more loudly\" would be the only correct choice if this is an exam question because it is grammatically (formal form) correct and it also conveys the right message.

For English, some managed to get by through \"sound\" to predict the correct grammar. However, when it comes to situations where all options sound ok, we need to fall back on actual grammar background to decide.

There used to be an English expert in this forum, \"Ricully\" who explains really well. Unfortunately he is missing now. You may like to go back to the old posts from him. I always refer back to his posts.

[Zack7]

atutor2001:

mumworks:

Hi

I am confused for this question :

The chairman of the debate competition advised the two teams to speak (loud/loudly/louder/ more loudly) in the finals as the audience gave feedback that the debaters did not speak loud enough in the semi finals.

The school teacher told my son that both \"louder\" and \"loudly\" can be the answer but not \"more loudly\" ?

Anyone can help ? Thanks

Hi mumworks
I am surprised by what the teacher had told your son that \"more loudly\" is not allowed.

\"more loudly\" is an adverb which is used to modify a verb e.g. \"you need to speak (speak is a verb) more loudly\"

\"louder\" is an adjective, which is used to modify a noun e.g. the noise (noise is a noun) is louder now. However, in informal writing, we can use \"louder\" as an adverb to replace \"more loudly\".

Therefore, \"more loudly\" would be the only correct choice if this is an exam question because it is grammatically (formal form) correct and it also conveys the right message.

For English, some managed to get by through \"sound\" to predict the correct grammar. However, when it comes to situations where all options sound ok, we need to fall back on actual grammar background to decide.

There used to be an English expert in this forum, \"Ricully\" who explains really well. Unfortunately he is missing now. You may like to go back to the old posts from him. I always refer back to his posts.

No. Louder in here is a comparative adverb. It modifies the verb speak. So is more loudly. And both are acceptable in formal writing.

[atutor2001]

Zack7:

No. Louder in here is a comparative adverb. It modifies the verb speak. So is more loudly. And both are acceptable in formal writing.

Extracted from http://oald8.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/dictionary/loud_2

\"Louder is also used in informal styles to mean ‘more loudly’: Can you speak louder?\"

Extracted from http://www.funtrivia.com/askft/Question97662.html

In speech, 'quicker' would be the most commonly found. In formal document writing, 'more quickly' would be found

In this link http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=1335298 they even disallowed \"louder\".

[Zack7]

atutor2001:

Zack7:

No. Louder in here is a comparative adverb. It modifies the verb speak. So is more loudly. And both are acceptable in formal writing.

Extracted from http://oald8.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/dictionary/loud_2

\"Louder is also used in informal styles to mean ‘more loudly’: Can you speak louder?\"

Extracted from http://www.funtrivia.com/askft/Question97662.html

In speech, 'quicker' would be the most commonly found. In formal document writing, 'more quickly' would be found

In this link http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=1335298 they even disallowed \"louder\".

So which of your first two extracts says that louder is wrong in formal speech?

And also, I can quote you a ton of other sources that says otherwise.

And the last link first comment by lis, louder is an adverb, not an adjective. she is wrong.

English is not a one way street. It is not rigid. Different sentence structure can mean totally different things and a fine line normally separates the right from the wrong if there is even a right and a wrong in the first place.

What might be wrong now may be accepted in future. Language evolves.

And louder seems wrong there because of the sentence structure. It is different from the question here.

Can you speak louder vs can you read all the new words more loudly.

In fact the better choice Is can you read all the new words aloud.

Because there is no hint of comparison there as opposed to the question here. So it is not as good to use comparative adverbs there.

[Michaelia0816]

I agreed to Zack7 too.

[Mdm Koh]

There will not be ambiguous questions in the national exams.

[AdvancedAcademia]

Mdm Koh:

There will not be ambiguous questions in the national exams.

I beg to differ on this... SEAB is notorious for shifting examination goal posts. Given their history, it is of little wonder that teachers and and parents have little faith in them. Besides, even when they manage to avoid ambiguous questions in the national exams, their marking guidelines always have so many gaps, that it leads to ambiguity in marking.

This is partially the reason why so many parents and teachers strive to find out what is the \"right\" answer to every question. However, I believe that we have to recognize that languages, especially English, is highly dependent on context and its grammar is constantly evolving. Thus, we should not teach our students/children merely to regurgitate what is written in some grammar tome, but to understand the purposes and functions of grammatical structure so that they can be more effective users of the language.

Related to the question; I agree with Zack7.

[Michaelia0816]

so most of them agreed to Zack7, hehe!

[Michaelia0816]

_______ the fact that it was difficult, the test also included question that we had never studied before.

1) Beside
2) Besides
3) Despite
4) In spite of
(. )