Proofreading skills are important for many jobs as well as for success in school. If you want to get a sense of how skilled you are when it comes to proofreading, or get a sense of someone else's abilities in this area, this free proofreading test can help you do just that. Click the image below to download a quiz designed to assess proofreading skills.
Free Proofreading Test
This test requires reviewing a document that has errors in it and marking them for correction. When you click the image, the test will open as a PDF document that you can save and/or print. The first page is the test itself, and the second page is the answer key, which is annotated with details regarding each correct response.
If you need assistance working with the document, use this guide to printables.
Reasons to Use
There are a number of reasons you might want to utilize this quiz.
- To get a sense of how strong your proofreading skills are
- To practice for a test that includes proofreading or editing skills
- To use as a skill check when helping your child with his or her homework
- To provide feedback to someone you are tutoring
- To verify the proofreading skills of people who have applied to work with you in a job that requires proofreading
Multiple Choice Proofreading Tests
If you would also find some multiple choice proofreading questions to be beneficial, check out these resources:
- EditingTests.com - This site features three proofreading tests that can be completed online. Each test has five questions and must be completed in two minutes. Each item is a single sentence, with words underlined. You have to choose which of the underlined words contains a mistake. The drawback is that it only tests whether you can find mistakes, but not if you can fix them.
- New York Times - This 'Red Pencils Ready?' proofreading quiz published in the Times is a hands-on proofreading test that involves reviewing several paragraphs that have mistakes in them to identify and fix. An answer key is included to make it easy to review your responses to see how well you did.
Creating Your Own Quiz
You may also want to consider creating a quiz to assess proofreading skills. You can opt to set up a quiz with complete paragraphs containing mistakes to review and edit, or to provide a list of separate sentences that have errors in them for the tester to identify and explain how to fix. Whichever approach you take, be sure to make an answer key while drafting the test, so you have an easy way to score responses.
