20855_Editing_descriptions_Years_4_and_5

The Great Barrier Reef
Read the description.
Editing skills
the great barrier reef is the largest coral reef in the wurld it is nearly two thousand
kilometres long and stretch along most of the north-eastern coastline of australia
althow the reef is so large it are actually made of very small coral polyps and algae
the hard part of the reef is made from the skelertons of these small creatures
coral polyps is not as they appear members
of the plant family but are really small
aminals that have poisonous tentacles these
animals feed on plancton and when they die
they’re skelingtons remain
1 Punctuation
(a) Find the 10 missing capital letters, 6 full
stops and 4 commas.
2 Grammar
The subject and verb must always agree in
person and in number. For example; ‘she
swims’, but ‘we swim’.
(a) In the text, circle the 3 verbs that do
not agree with their subjects. Write the
correction above each word.
(b) Circle the verbs below that agree with
their subjects.
(i) The children was/were interested in
marine science.
(ii) They wants/want to see the Great
Barrier Reef.
(iii) It is/are under threat.
(iv) It has/have to be protected.
Prepositions are positional words placed before
nouns and pronouns to indicate their relation
to other words; for example, ‘I had my shower
after dinner’, ‘My mother is proud of me’.
(c) Write the missing prepositions from the
text.
(i) the largest coral reef
the world
(ii) it stretches
north-eastern coastline.
(iii) the reef is made
skeletons of coral polyps.
3 Spelling
R.I.C. Publications ® www.ricgroup.com.au Editing skills 41
the
(a) Underline the 7 spelling errors and write
the correction above each word.
4 Vocabulary
A good choice of vocabulary can make a
piece of writing more interesting.
the
in length tiny feast solid
most extensive vast venomous
(a) Replace the bold words or phrases in the
text with those from the list above. Write
the new words or phrases above the
originals.