Please help me with grammar...?

Question

I'm writing an important essay and there are a few lines that sound awkward. I appreciate your help :)

"Before entrance to high school, all the middle school students were required to take an exam..." (or, Before ENTERING high school?)

"Students who scored in the top percentiles were offered the opportunity to attend..." (or, just in the top PERCENTILE?)

"After completing high school and two years of Business College in Hong Kong..." (is it correct to capitalize business college? Microsoft Word says it should be capitalized, but I'm not convinced)

"...he was not ashamed to learn among the 6th graders..." (among, or amongst? Should "6th graders" be instead "sixth graders"?)

Thanks!!

Answer 1

Before entering high school, all the middle school students were required to take an exam...

Students who scored in the top percentiles were offered the opportunity to attend...

After completing high school and two years of business college in Hong Kong..."

I'd say since its not a specific school it shouldn't be capitalized. If it were Hong Kong Business School then capitalize it.

"...he was not ashamed to learn among the sixth graders..."

Among or amongst are both acceptable according to my dictionary

Answer 2

Before entering high school all middle school students ARE required to take an exam.

Students in top percentiles were offered the opportuinity to attend...


After completing high school and two years of business college (leave the c and b lower cased). Microsoft is bulit by TECHIES not GRAMMARIANS, LOL.

Reword the sentence: After completing high school and two years of college in Hong Kong as a business major...

He was not ashamed to learn among 6th graders.

A capitalized word that ought to be in lower-case is usually trying to appear more important than it really is.


Write out numbers that require no more than two words

Answer 3

1. Either one is correct. It's simply an issue of your personal choice.
2. I prefer "percentiles", since theoretically the top percentile is the 99th percentile, and you are apparently also talking about the 98th, the 97th, and so forth.
3. It should not be capitalized in this case. Good for you for not doing everyting Microsoft Word says. It's not a proper noun the way you have used it.
4. Both "among" and "amongst" are in common use in English and you can choose either one.
5. On the issue of "6th" graders, follow whatever the styleguide you are supposed to use says. My guess is that you'll want to write it out.

Answer 4

1. entering 2. percentile 3. Word is wrong because this is not the actual name of the college 4. "6th" is not the problem. The rest of the sentence is. It should read:

He was not ashamed to study alongside 6th-graders.

(Note that there is no "the" and the hyphen in "6th-graders".)

Answer 5

"Before entrance to high school, all the middle school students were required to take an exam..."
id change that to "Before entrance INTO"

and yea percentile not percentiles

yea you should capitalize business school, its a proper noun

and yea use amongst and anytime writing an essay never use numbers always spell them out.

Answer 6

before entering high school

percentile

yes its correct to capitalize business names

amongst

sixth graders

Answer 7

Everyone else is right, but among and amongst are completely interchangeable. For more help, use http://wsu.edu/~brians/errors/errors.html#errors. It's a great source.