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Pupil, 10, who spots 'grammar mistakes' in her English exam writes a letter of complaint to Education Secretary Michael Gove

A schoolgirl who spotted grammatical 'mistakes' in her English exam has written a letter of complaint - to Education Secretary Michael Gove.

Eagle-eyed Rebecca Lee, 10, a pupil at Christ Church Primary School in Clifton, Bristol, noticed commas 'missing' from two questions in her SATs last Tuesday.

The Year Six pupil says she was so 'annoyed' by the basic punctuation errors that she wanted to take her complaint to the top.

Rebecca Lee, 10, from Bristol, wrote to Education Secretary Michael Gove over punctuation errors in her SATs

So she wrote to Mr Gove saying: 'I understand that you are very keen for us to all learn our complex sentences and use of accurate punctuation.

'I believe that your department should also use the correct punctuation in all SATs tasks.'

The schoolgirl said she hoped to hear back from Mr Gove.

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Rebecca, from Clifton, said: 'The exam wording should be setting an example and I was annoyed. I had to write.

'I've not heard back yet and am still waiting - Mr Gove's busy but I do hope to get a response back.'

The 'mistakes' were in a section of the exam on complex sentences - and had commas 'missing' from two sentences.

Enlarge   Education Secretary Michael Gove, left, and the letter he was sent by Bristol schoolgirl Rebecca Lee, right

One sentence read: 'If there is not enough rainfall this month there will be a drought' and 'As he was the chief of the tribe the final decision was his.'

This afternoon a spokesman for the Department for Education defended the lack of commas in the exam paper.

He said: 'The commas here are a matter of choice. They can be used to mark out clauses that appear at the beginning or the end of a sentence, but they are not necessary.

'We decided to use commas sometimes and not at others to make the tests more like real life where people will have their own styles.

'The only clauses that must be surrounded by commas are those in the middle of a sentence.'

The same sentences - featuring commas in the correct places - had appeared in an earlier part of the exam on grammar.

Around half a million pupils around the country took the same exam last week.

Bright spark: Rebecca Lee discussed the errors in her exam with schoolfriends before writing to Mr Gove

Rebecca's mother Jo Lee, 40, a town planner, said: 'A group of children were discussing in the playground that there had been a mistake and that it wasn't right.

'Rebecca said she thought she should write to whoever was responsible and found that it was Michael Gove. I helped her write the letter and we emailed it.

'It's great that she decided to do it. Generally, I encourage her to do these types of things - to stand up to the people who are supposed to be setting an example. I'm fully behind her.'

The Government's Standards and Testing Agency is meant to check if exams are up to scratch before pupils take them, but a spokesman insisted that using commas in complex sentences was 'a matter of choice'.

Rebecca's teacher Barney Braithwaite said many of his pupils noticed the mistake when they undertook the new spelling, punctuation and grammar test.

He said: 'I laughed my head off when I had heard that Rebecca had sent the letter. She obviously felt moved enough by the mistakes.'

A LINGUISTIC CONUNDRUM: SHOULD THE COMMAS HAVE BEEN THERE? Susie Dent has advised Countdown contestants (and hosts) on linguistic matters since 1992

Susie Dent, the resident word expert on Countdown, says that while adding a comma into the two sentences Rebecca Lee complained about would help them flow better, it is not essential in either one.

Mrs Dent, 45, who has sat in the Channel 4 show's Dictionary Corner adjudicating on linguistic matters since 1992, told MailOnline the comma 'serves as a signpost, helping us to understand what lies ahead and, in many cases, removing ambiguity'.

She added: 'Each of these two sentences has a subordinate clause (a combination of words that do not form a complete sentence and which require another to complete the thought: 'If there is not enough rainfall this month', and 'As he was the chief of the tribe' both need more information before the sentence is complete).

'Adding a comma after each clause in these cases would make the sentences and their style flow smoothly, slowing them down almost to the rhythm of natural speech.

'However, in these particular instances, the comma is not essential and is more a matter of style than necessity; the reader will understand what is being said without them.

'A comma in the wrong place, however, can change the meaning entirely: 'If there is not enough rainfall, this month there will be a drought).

Oxford-educated Mrs Dent is the longest-serving member of Countdown's on-screen team, and has appeared with presenters including the much-loved Richard Whiteley, Des Lynam, Des O'Connor, Jeff Stelling and current host, Nick Hewer.

Mrs Dent, who studied modern languages at Somerville College, Oxford, before studying German at Princeton, worked as a language teacher and in publishing before going to work for the Oxford University Press.

She has written several reports on language for the Oxford University Press, and lives in Oxford with her husband and two daughters.





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