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Jack TS #14


Today I met with Giancarlo for one more essay review session before the GRE. His mistakes come from the fact that he is trying a little too hard to transfer vocabulary and usage from Spanish over to English: he pluralizes adjectives, uses direct translations and sometimes just writes the Spanish word. Another thing that is a little harder for him is article use, as those are also used differently in Spanish. Sometimes he will put ‘a/an’ or ‘the’ in a place where they are not needed, or leave one out where it would help make the sentence a little more specific. Also, demonstratives (this/that) versus articles (the vs. a/an) can sometimes be a bit troubling. That aside, his spelling is pretty great and he is usually pretty good at fixing his own mistakes. The only issue is that he is only going to have thirty minutes to write the essay, and that is a challenge for any level of English speaker. If he keeps practicing, though, he should do really well.

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