Hello!

I was hoping someone here might be able to assist me.  I am - as so many before me - currently stuck on the Grammar Awareness assignment.  I have failed twice now, and so I find myself very, very worried as I'm facing my third and final attempt - especially since I have a soft time limit and need this to be done ASAP.  Most maddening, I find the tutor's feedback to be utterly unhelpful, and was hoping someone here could give me a hand.  here is how things stand with my second attempt:

She can speak Mandarin.

(i) Can Speak

(ii) Present Simple

(iii) Can + Simple Preset

(iv) Information about a person's ability

Comment: Your answer in (iii) is incorrect.  Please correctly label the components.

As you can see the feedback is little more then "Nope, you're wrong."  This is quite unhelpful.  I don't know what part is wrong - I assume the whole thing is wrong? - or how it differs from, say:

To be perfectly honest, you are completely failing to understand the tutor's completely fair and honest advice.  I can see exactly what they mean.

1 - what kind of verbs are used in 'I can speak manadarin?'

2- why is the passive used?  I only said this to someone a couple of days ago - what is the IMPORTANT information here?

You are so convinced that tutor is at fault and not yourself that you are simply not looking into it properly.  You will neither finish the course nor teach English properly if you don't learn to analyse the language, it's forms and uses.  That's what this module is all about.  Learning on line is more difficult than in a classroom because you can't ask advice but you can on here - so stop criticising the tutor and find out what the problem is - in fact exactly what the tutor says it is.  There is no guaranteed pass - you have to prove you v=can understand the grammar and how to present it in order to become a teacher.

Possibly you said it to me but I'd figured it on my own and passed the course at that point. I'd figured out that all the tutor wants is for you to show that you know what the function actually is, not to pull a predefined answer out and slap it down. Just by asking the question (on the wrong group but still..), the light went on for me and, although AlixM09 replied, I'd sorted it by then :-)

Like this question, the tutor told me exactly what to do without telling me the answer. You're not there to be spoon fed, that's for the students :-)

With the last question, I wouldn't have said "be + past participle" is adequate, but you got away with it so... With iv) you are pulling a predefined answer out of the list in Quiz 50. Don't do that. Look at the module on passive voice, decide what the verb "was founded" is saying and explain that in English.

If you asked a student: "Use the verb 'to shoot' to show a completed action at a specified time in the past". They could reply "Bob shot a deer". If you then said "that's not what I meant"..... well.... then.... what??