KS2 SATs 2018 — English GPS Paper 1: Questions

The idea

This unit brings together three punctuation favourites on GPS Paper 1. Commas separate items in a list, follow a fronted adverbial, and mark off extra information. Apostrophes show missing letters in contractions, or possession — and never make an ordinary word plural.

For direct speech, wrap the spoken words in inverted commas. Start the speech with a capital letter, and put the closing punctuation inside the inverted commas. The reporting clause — the part like 'shouted Leo' — stays outside the speech marks.

When a question asks you to insert punctuation, rewrite the whole sentence in your head first, mark by mark, and check each mark has a job you can name. Work slowly on these questions: one missed or misplaced mark usually costs you the whole mark for that item.

Worked example

Punctuate this correctly: watch out shouted Leo the cars coming

1. The spoken words are 'Watch out!' — they need inverted commas, a capital W and an exclamation mark inside the marks.
2. 'Shouted Leo' is the reporting clause, so it goes outside the inverted commas, as its own sentence here.
3. 'Cars' here is short for 'car is', a contraction, so it needs an apostrophe: car's. Treat 'the car's coming' as a second spoken sentence.

Answer: "Watch out!" shouted Leo. "The car's coming."

Watch out

• Putting closing punctuation outside the inverted commas at the end of speech.
• Adding apostrophes to ordinary plurals, such as 'car's' when you simply mean more than one car.