Errors in the tests

[Alan]

Let's wait until what you refer to as

[Yankee]

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Could be the same reason you do.
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Amy
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ESL teacher, translator, and a native speaker of American English

[Yankee]

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You seem to be puzzled fairly often, Alan.

It's a shame, though, to stick your head in the sand and simply pretend there is nothing that needs editing in the tests. I mean, there have recently been lots of typos corrected, but there have also been some whoppers. A majority of the errors already edited had been stagnating on the site for years. Why is that? Perhaps because no one wanted to have to deal with what I'm dealing with right now?

It's high time somebody said something about the errors. Don't you think they've stagnated long enough?

It's puzzling that you feel it is appropriate and professional to withhold any and all explanation on the question I've raised about sentence 6/7. You wrote the sentence. Therefore, you are theoretically the best person to explain the tense usage.

It seems you have no explanation at all and simply don't want to say so.
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Amy
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ESL teacher, translator, and a native speaker of American English

[Yankee]

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http://www.english-test.net/esl/learn/english/grammar/ii266/esl-test.php

Question 2 has a typo: The word 'as' should be 'a'.

Question 5 has not been edited yet.
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Amy
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ESL teacher, translator, and a native speaker of American English

[Yankee]

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Lost_soul has pointed out a typo in this test:
http://www.english-test.net/esl/learn/english/grammar/ae040/esl-test.php

Sentence 1 should read this way:
The teenagers next door make a lot of racket when their parents are out of town.
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Amy
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ESL teacher, translator, and a native speaker of American English

[Yankee]

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Here's another typo needing correction -- compliments of a test-taker.
http://www.english-test.net/forum/ftopic19834.html#64767
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Amy
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ESL teacher, translator, and a native speaker of American English

[Torsten]

Hi Amy,

Many thanks for pointing out the typos -- they'll be corrected by tomorrow.
Regards,
Torsten
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Test Of English for International Communication
TOEIC Preparation & TOEIC Vocabulary

[Yankee]

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I hope that includes all of the various types of typos.

By the way, what about some of the other older discussions of editing? For example, in this thread:
http://www.english-test.net/forum/ftopic16509.html#51306

Was this overlooked or forgotten? Or did the author disagree?

Here is a post that was never answered at all even though the poster made a good point:
http://www.english-test.net/forum/ftopic13267.html#38095

If an author disagrees with editing suggestions, don't you think it would be worthwhile and instructive if the author also offered his/her point of view as to why the sentence does not need any editing?
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Amy
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ESL teacher, translator, and a native speaker of American English

[Yankee]

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Here's another one. The typo pointed out here hasn't been corrected:
http://www.english-test.net/forum/ftopic12728.html#36099
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Amy
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ESL teacher, translator, and a native speaker of American English

[Torsten]

Hi Amy,

Thanks a lot for pointing out those mistakes -- we'll fix them soon.
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Test Of English for International Communication
TOEIC Preparation & TOEIC Vocabulary

[Mister Micawber]

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Here's another that just popped up: http://www.english-test.net/forum/ftopic19834.html
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Canadian-American native speaker
who teaches English for a living at Mister Micawber's
ESL cafe: Interview with Mister Micawber

[Yankee]

Hi Torsten

I'm glad this test is going to be edited:
http://www.english-test.net/forum/ftopic13267.html#64873

I have now added some comments in the above thread explaining why a little editing is necessary. If you think my post is unhelpful or completely unnecessary, please feel free to simply delete it.
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Amy
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ESL teacher, translator, and a native speaker of American English

[Pamela]

Hi Amy,

What would we do without you and MM, who have taken the trouble of editing all these numerous tests. I realise how troublesome and time consuming it is both editing and parsing them. The tests are an essential ingredient of the site inasmuch as many English learners stumble onto the site through the tests like I did some time ago, when taking tests on a daily basis was my main occupation. I acknowledge that some forum members and other learners of the intermediate/ advanced levels can fix a mistake. But what about other English learners, with the poor command of the language, who are not able to define the correctness of a sentence and learn it automatically.From these considerations, the tests are worth editing thoroughly as they can easily do many test-takers a disservice.

[Yankee]

Thanks, Pamela.

Obviously, some of the authors of the tests here have invested huge amounts of time in test-writing. It's great that the site has so many tests to offer, but even best-selling authors and the writers of the top ESL books have editors. Typos and errors are not really unusual, and that's what keeps so many editors and proofreaders so very busy and so very employed.

Seeing as the tests on this site are in fact "tests", and also that this site caters to those aiming at taking standardized tests, I feel strongly that editing is a critical and necessary element for the tests here. I think it's often much easier for someone other than the author of a test to spot a problem or typo. In addition, there are also differences in usage that a writer might not be aware of (e.g. BE vs AmE).
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Amy
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ESL teacher, translator, and a native speaker of American English

[Mister Micawber]

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