Please correct every test sheet you took when you are a ninth grader.

[sitifan]

Miss Chen said to her students, "Please correct every test sheet you took when you are a ninth grader. It's helpful for preparing for big exams." (My bold.)
Source: written by a Taiwanese teacher of English.

Is the expression in bold acceptable to native speakers?

 

[Skrej]

No. To begin with, it mixes past tense (took) and present tense (are), which is ungrammatical in this context.

Are these students still in 9th grade, or are they now in a higher level?

 

[sitifan]

Are these students still in 9th grade, or are they now in a higher level?

They are still in 9th grade.
By the way, is the expression "correct a test sheet" acceptable?

 

[Skrej]

I would omit 'sheet'

If they're still in 9th grade, it's very unnatural to keep mentioning that. If the idea is just to go back and correct previous exams from the beginning of the term until now, then just say that.

Please go back and correct all your tests from this year.
Please go back and correct all your old tests from this year/term/semester.

 

[SoothingDave]

Sheets aren't taken. Tests are taken. I don't know what a "test sheet" is. Is it a actual test, or some sort of exercise to prepare for a test?

And you're still mixing tenses and confusing things. "When you are a ninth grader" describes some future state. "When you were a ninth grader" decsribes the past.

If they are in the ninth grade now, then simply say "please correct all the tests you have taken this (school) year."

 

[emsr2d2]

If the students are 8th graders, can I say, "Please correct every test you take when you are a ninth grader. It's helpful for preparing for big exams."?

How does a student correct their own tests? That's for the teacher to do. The students answer the questions on a test, then the teacher corrects their answers. You're going to need to give us a lot more context in order for us to understand what you're trying to express.

 

[Tarheel]

How does a student correct their own tests?

That's what I've been thinking all along. When I went to school, the students didn't correct their own papers. The teacher always did that.

 

[jutfrank]

sitifan, do you want to try to explain to us in detail what Miss Chen meant because I don't think any of us have much of an idea of what the sentence is supposed to mean.

 

[sitifan]

"To correct a test sheet" is a literal translation of a Mandarin phrase "dingzheng (=to correct) kaojuan (=test sheet / exam paper)". If students do not correctly answer a question on a quiz or an exam, teachers in Taiwan often ask the students to copy the question with its correct answer several times, which is called "to correct a test sheet". "To correct a test sheet" does not mean "to grade the test sheet". Only when a test sheet has been graded can students "correct" it.

 

[Rover_KE]

Who is this 'Taiwanese teacher of English' who seems to have the monopoly on imposing their own dodgy exercises on your curriculum?

 

[jutfrank]

"To correct a test sheet" is a literal translation of a Mandarin phrase "dingzheng (=to correct) kaojuan (=test sheet / exam paper)".

That explains why the sentence is so bad in English.

If students do not correctly answer a question on a quiz or an exam, teachers in Taiwan often ask the students to copy the question with its correct answer several times, which is called "to correct a test sheet".

Let me get this right. When Miss Chen says "Please correct every test sheet you took", you're saying she means 'Please copy every question and corresponding answer of every test you have taken this year multiple times'. Is that right?

 

[emsr2d2]

There are three main problems:

1. We don't use "test sheet". Use "test paper" or "exam paper".
2. The direct translation from Mandarin simply doesn't work.
3. British schools, at least, don't use any form of what you're describing. The closest thing I can think of is something that is no longer used in schools - writing lines! It was a form of punishment. If a child was disruptive in class by, for example, constantly talking while the teacher is trying to teach, they might have to stay behind after school hours and write "I must not talk in class" 100 times on a piece of paper. However, that doesn't seem to be what Miss Chen is doing. As I understand it, if someone said that the answer to "What is 2 + 2?" was 6, they would have to write "2 + 2 = 4" multiple times to try and get the information to be cemented in their brain. British schools don't have an equivalent to this.

 

[Tarheel]

every question that WAS not answered correctly

 

[sitifan]

[P]lease correct all the tests you have taken this (school) year.

Please go back and correct all your tests from this year.
Please go back and correct all your old tests from this year/term/semester.

SoothingDave and Skrej are Americans. The quoted sentences are acceptable in American English, aren't they?

 

[Tarheel]

This American says they are fine.

 

[sitifan]

This American says they are fine.

When American teachers say to their students, "Please go back and correct all your old tests from this term," what do they mean by "correct"?

 

[Tarheel]

When American teachers say to their students, "Please go back and correct all your old tests from this term," what do they mean by "correct"?

Well, those that were marked wrong should have the wrong answer replaced by the right answer.

 

[tedmc]

Would this be better?

Do the correction on all your old tests.

 

[emsr2d2]

I don't find "Please go back and correct all your old tests from this term" at all natural. What's the point in telling a student to go back and change the answers to tests they already took? They already know they got some answers wrong and they were told the right answers. This seems like a monumental waste of their time!

Would this be better?
Do the correction on all your old tests.

No.

 

[Tarheel]

I don't think anybody has said they are natural. The question was, "Are they acceptable in American English?" In fact, I don't think I even held onto my old exams. I couldn't go back and "correct" them if I wanted to.

Of course, that was a long time ago. Maybe I held onto them. Maybe I kept them in a folder for posterity.

(I'm not saying there's anything wrong with the Taiwanese school system. Asian kids tend to do better in school than other Americans generally speaking. (Thomas Sowell summed it up in one word: work.))