Guide for Quiz 1

  1. Accents and Punctuation: Do you remember how to divide a word into its basic syllables? Where does the natural accent fall in Spanish? Why are the "sticky" vowels so important?
  2. Preterit: Can you conjugate the list of REGULAR PRETERIT verbs? Have you been studying the regular preterit tense as well as the semi-irregular preterit tense? How many verbs have spelling changes to preserve a hard C or G sound? Which stem-changing verbs change in the preterit tense? When do they change? According to the professor's system of conjugating (the zig-zag method), how many semi- irregular preterit verbs are there? How many base-changing verbs should you know? What are their base changes? How do you conjugate irregular verbs like SER, IR, and DAR? How does the meaning of verbs like "poder", "saber, "conocer", and "tener" change when they are conjugated in the preterit tense?
  3. Imperfect: How do we conjugate verbs in the imperfect tense? What three verbs are irregular in the imperfect tense? Do you recall when to use the imperfect (“description”, “habit”, “repetitive description”, and “ongoing but uncompleted action”)? Can you describe both in the present and past tense a few of your pastimes? What did you do/used to do? Where did you go/used to go?
  4. Imperfect vs. Preterit: Do you remember the underlying scheme that helps determine when to conjugate a verb in the preterit as opposed to the imperfect tense? Could you write a paragraph in the past and conjugate each verb appropriately using this underlying scheme? Would you be able to complete a CLOZE paragraph using these past tenses? Can you identify in preterit and imperfect tenses in oral communication?
  5. The Impersonal SE and the Passive SE: What are the four ways that SE can be used in a sentence? What is the likelihood of using each type of SE? What contextual clues can you use to determine how SE is being used? When using SE to express the impersonal voice, can the verb be conjugated according to any subject or just the singular plural? How is a passive SE sentence constructed? How does it differ from the impersonal SE sentence? In what typical situations do you find the impersonal SE being used?