Yahoo News Adults baffled by Year 6 SATs question testing grammar knowledge - but can you get it right?
Adult users on TikTok had their English proficiency tested as Grammar Slammer, a teacher trainer, put forth a Year 6 SATs question on the platform.
Students in their last primary school year sat for tests last week examining their knowledge of English, Mathematics, and Science. In light of this, Grammar Slammer, real name Sarah, who advises trainee teachers on the elements of grammar present in the English National Curriculum, provided older age groups the opportunity to exhibit their skills.
She posed this challenge: "Insert one comma into the correct place in the question below.
The sentence being: 'Every night dad and my brother take the dog for a walk.'".
For those unaware, the comma ought to be positioned following the phrase 'every night'. As Sarah elaborated: "Commas are used in sentences to separate phrases and clauses."
Moreover, she detailed that the aforementioned statement contains an "adverbial phrase", essentially denoting when action is taking place. An adverbial phrase located at the onset of a sentence is designated a 'fronted adverbial', reports the Mirror.
This grammatical terminologies seemingly bamboozled some TikTok users who took to the comments section to voice their answers. A user admitted: "I got it right, but didn't know the reason," adding "Its just the place where it makes sense to take a breath."
Another person echoed this sentiment: "Commas are there to take a breath when reading out loud! " A third observer conceded: "I got this right and I was taught it's when you take a breath?"
However, Sarah was quick to debunk the 'breath' theory, saying: "We pause at commas when reading, but that's not what they're actually for."
Some voiced concerns that Year 6 pupils are too young to grasp the intricacies of fronted adverbials. One individual remarked: "We need a better way of teaching this stuff. As soon as clauses and adverbials come up, my brain's switched off because it sounds complicated."
But Sarah added: "To children they're no more complicated than learning dinosaur names or names of footballers."
Sarah, who has a following of 15,000, posts SATs teasers daily on her account. Last week saw a think tank intensify calls for SATs to be abolished.
EDSK (Education and Skills) suggests that the contentious exams should be replaced with regular online tests for younger children and 'digital SATS' for year 9s. It released a paper proposing a 10-year plan to overhaul school education, criticising the "relentless focus on high-stakes tests such as SATs in primary school.
"They are encouraging schools to 'teach to the test' and narrow the curriculum to spend more time on exam preparation," the advice stated. The organisation proposes that the Standard Assessment Tests (SATs) at the end of primary school should be replaced by 'regular online testing' from the ages of five to 14, which should be geared towards "low-stakes 'digital SATs' for 14 year olds in almost all national curriculum subjects to inform their future subject choices".
The paper stated: "The enduring obsession with pen-and-paper tests is at odds with other countries such as Australia, Denmark and Wales, who have already dropped written exams in favour of national online testing."
