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Dictionary.com | Find the Meanings and Definitions of Words at D. Practice Taking the HSA ~ HSA: High School Assessment Program ~ Practice Taking the HSA Teachers can use the mini-assessments on the public release forms to help diagnose student strengths and needs. The mini-assessments are organized by the content standards identified in the table below. Items on the mini-assessments were on previous forms of the actual assessment and have been released to the public to illustrate how content might be assessed.

The mini-assessments include a combination of selected response, student produced-response and constructed response items. Correct answers are provided for the selected response and student produced response items. Scored student responses are available for the constructed responses. After students complete the online mini-assessments, they will receive the results of their performance online by standard, expectation, and indicator assessed.

Assessment taking tools are also available through Pearson Educational Measurement Solutions. English language. English is a West Germanic language that was first spoken in early medieval England and is now a global lingua franca.[5][6] It is an official language of almost 60 sovereign states and the most commonly spoken language in sovereign states including the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Australia, Ireland, New Zealand and a number of Caribbean nations. It is the third-most-common native language in the world, after Mandarin and Spanish.[7] It is widely learned as a second language and is an official language of the European Union and of the United Nations, as well as of many world organisations.

English arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and what is now southeast Scotland. The Norman conquest of England in the 11th century gave rise to heavy borrowings from Norman French: thus a layer of elaborate vocabulary, particularly in the field of governance, and some Romance-language spelling conventions[17][18] were added to what had by then become Middle English. Etymology. Online. The history of English is conventionally, if perhaps too neatly, divided into three periods usually called Old English (or Anglo-Saxon), Middle English, and Modern English.

The earliest period begins with the migration of certain Germanic tribes from the continent to Britain in the fifth century A.D., though no records of their language survive from before the seventh century, and it continues until the end of the eleventh century or a bit later. By that time Latin, Old Norse (the language of the Viking invaders), and especially the Anglo-Norman French of the dominant class after the Norman Conquest in 1066 had begun to have a substantial impact on the lexicon, and the well-developed inflectional system that typifies the grammar of Old English had begun to break down.

Eft he axode, hu ðære ðeode nama wære þe hi of comon. Him wæs geandwyrd, þæt hi Angle genemnode wæron. Again he [St. Gregory] asked what might be the name of the people from which they came. Garammar Page - What grammar to use when. Abbreviation An abbreviation is a short form of another word: "Dr. " for "Doctor," "N.J. " for "New Jersey," "vol. " for "volume. " A pronounceable abbreviation formed from initials without periods (e.g., NASA) is called an acronym.

It is better to avoid abbreviations in formal and business writing. However, there are occasions when abbreviations are acceptable: > for times and dates ("a.m. ," "p.m. ," "B.C. ," "A.D. ") > for names and places usually abbreviated ("St. > for professional references, especially if repeating the full name would be awkward (e.g., "NICU" instead of "Newborn Intensive Care Unit") In a case like the last example, however, always let your reader know what the abbreviation stands for the first time you refer to it: "The Newborn Intensive Care Unit (NICU) is the most heavily staffed unit in the hospital. " References: William and Mary Morris, "Harper Dictionary of Contemporary Usage," p. 2 Strunk and White, "Elements of Style," p. 81 Troyka, "Handbook for Writers," pp. 568-71 Adverb.