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Let me say that "judgement" is British spelling while "judgment" is American. When it comes to spelling, Americans tend to find a shortcut.sandals onlinethat is right, just like color and colour
Most preposition usage is essentially conventional, even quirkish at times, and many preposition choices actually have no inherent or discernible logic of their own. For instance, it’s not easy to discern any logical difference between “in,” “on,” and “at” as prepositions of place and location, and this is why so many nonnative English speakers take a long time to master their proper usage. Achieving this mastery, in fact, requires committing to memory the specific prepositions needed according to established usage, and it’s a task that becomes even more tedious and difficult in the case of the prepositional phrases and prepositional idioms.
The common run of prepositions usually establishes a space or time relationship between ideas within a phrase, clause, or sentence, and they can be divided into five groups:
1. The prepositions of place and location: “in,” “at,” and “on”
2. The prepositions of motion: “to,” “toward,” “in,” and “into”
3. The prepositions of movement and direction: “to,” “onto,” and “into”
4. The prepositions for specific points of time: “on,” “at,” “in,” and “after”
5. The prepositions for periods or extended time: “since,” “for,” “by,” “from…to,”
“from…until,” “before,” “during,” “within,” “between,” and “beyond.”
Rules for Usage:
PREPOSITIONS THAT ESTABLISH RELATIONSHIPS IN SPACE
The prepositions “in,” “at,” and “on” for indicating place and location. The general rule is to use “in” for an enclosed space, “at” for a point, and “on” for a surface. Here are some specific guidelines for their use in American English:
Use “in” for spaces: “They always meet in a secret room [in a suburban hotel, in a parking lot, in a farm, in a ricefield].”
Use “in” for names of specific land areas: “She lives in a quiet town [in Tagaytay, in Cavite, in Southern Tagalog, in the island of Palawan, in the Philippines, in Southeast Asia].
Use “in” for bodies of water: “That kind of fish thrives in freshwater [in the river, in the lake, in streams, in the sea].”
Use “in” for lines: “The registrants are in a row [in a line, in a queue].”
Use “at” to indicate points: “You’ll find us at the entrance [at the taxi stand, at the supermarket, at the intersection].”
Use “at” for specific addresses, as in “She lives at 40 Lilac St.”
Use “on” for names of streets, roads, avenues, and boulevards: “Her apartment is on San Pablo Street [on Ortigas Avenue, on Santolan Road, on Roxas Boulevard].”
Use “on” for surfaces: “There’s a large stain on the floor [on the wall, on the ceiling, on the roof].”
The prepositions “in,” “at,” and “on” for indicating location.
Use “in” in these cases: “The children are in the kitchen [in the garden, in the car, in the library, in the class, in school]. (The article “the” is mandatory except for the fourth and last example.)
Use “at” in these particular cases: “She was at home [at the library, at the office, at school, at work] when we arrived.”
Use “on” in these particular cases: “They are on the plane [on the train, on the boat].”
Some locations, though, don’t need a preposition between them and the verb: “They sleep downstairs [inside, outside, downtown, upstairs, uptown].”
Rules for Usage:
PREPOSITIONS THAT ESTABLISH MOTION AND DIRECTION
The prepositions of motion “to,” “toward,” “in,” and “into.” These four prepositions link the verbs of movement—“move,” “go,” “transfer,” “walk,” “run,” “swim,” “ride,” “drive,” “fly,” “travel,” and many more—to their object destination. All of these verbs, except “transfer,” can take both “to” and “toward.”
We must keep in mind, however, that “to” is used to convey the idea of movement toward a specific destination, while “toward” is used to convey movement in a general direction that may not reach a specific destination:
“Please take me to the bus station.”
(The speaker obligates the listener to specifically take him to a particular place.)
“The speedboat headed toward the harbor.”
(The speaker indicates only a movement in a general direction.)
We can actually interchange “into” and “in” more or less freely when used with verbs of motion. There are exceptions, though. We can only use “in” (or “inside”) when the preposition is the last word in the sentence or occurs right before an adverbial of time (“today,” “tomorrow”), manner (“quickly,” “hurriedly”) or frequency (“once,” “twice”).
Examples: “The woman went into the manager’s office.” “The woman went in twice.” “The woman went in.” “The new tenants moved into the apartment yesterday” “The new tenants moved in hurriedly.” “The new tenants moved in.”
We can also use “into” as the last word in a question: “What sort of trouble have you gotten yourself into?” But we should use “in” if the question is said in this form: “What sort of trouble are you in?”
“In/into” also has two unique uses with the verb “move.” The first is when “move in” is followed by a clause indicating purpose or motive: “The hunters moved in for the kill.” “The soldiers moved in for the attack.” In both examples, “in” is part of the verb phrase, so we cannot use “into.”
The second case is when we use “into” with “move” to convey the idea of simple movement: “The firemen moved into the burning building.”
The prepositions of direction “to,” “onto,” and “into.” These prepositions correspond to the common prepositions of location: “to” for “at,” “onto” for “on,” and “into” for “in.” Each is defined by the same space relations of point, line, surface, or area as in the prepositions of location.
“To,” the basic directional preposition, signifies orientation toward a goal. If that goal is physical, like a specific destination, “to” conveys the idea of movement in the direction of that goal: “The troops returned to their base.”
“Toward,” of course, also works as a directional preposition, and means about the same thing as the directional preposition “to.” If the goal is not a physical place, as in an action, “to” simply puts the verb in the infinitive form to express a particular purpose: “She sings to earn extra money.” “She cut her hair to show her displeasure.”
The directional prepositions “onto” and “into” are, as we know, compounds formed by “to” with corresponding prepositions of location: on + to = onto, to signify movement toward a surface, and in + to = into, to signify movement inside a finite three-dimensional space or volume.
When used with many verbs of motion, however, “on” and “in” already have a directional meaning. We therefore can freely use them instead of “onto” and “into.” Note that “on” and “onto” work equally well in the following sentences: “The cats fell on [onto] the floor.” “The whales washed up onto [on] the beach.” “The girl jumped into [in] the river.”
You will notice, however, that always, the compound locational prepositions “onto” and “into” convey the consummation of an action, while the simple locational prepositions “on” and “in” indicate the subject’s end-position as a result of the action.
Let’s look at some examples.
Consummation of action: “The boy fell onto [to] the ground.” “The sailor dived into [to] the pool.”
Position of subject: “The boy is on the ground.” “The sailor is in the pool.”
Now we discover something interesting: directional prepositions actually serve to convey the idea of cause, while locational prepositions serve to convey the idea of effect. This, in fact, is as near a rule of thumb as we can get in dealing with these two kinds of prepositions.
We cannot leave this subject, of course, without discussing “at” as a preposition of motion and direction. Being the least specific of the prepositions in space orientation, we can use “at” in a good number of ways.
To mark a verb of motion directed towards a point: “She arrived at the airport late.” “The marksman aimed at the hostage-taker with precision.”
To indicate direction: “The man leaped at the thief to subdue him.” “She jumped at me without warning.”
Rules for Usage:
PREPOSITIONS THAT ESTABLISH RELATIONSHIPS IN TIME
The prepositions for specific points in time: “on,” “at,” “in,” and “after.”
“On” is used with the days of the week: “We are going out on Monday [on Tuesday, on Sunday].”
“On” is used for specific dates (optional in informal usage): “The trade fair will start on March 12, 2003 [on March 12, on the 12th of March, on the 12th ].”
“At” is used with clocked time: “She picks her son from school at 4:30 p.m.”
“At” is used with the following times of the day: “noon,” “night,” “midnight,” “sunrise,” “sunset”: “We sail for Palawan at noon [at midnight, at sunrise].”
“At” is used with certain major holidays (without the word “Day”) as points of time: “The family always gets together at Thanksgiving [at Christmas, at Easter, at Halloween].”
“In” is used with the following times of the day: “morning,” “afternoon,” “evening”: “She waters her roses in the morning [in the afternoon, in the evening].”
“In” is used with dates that do not carry the specific day: “The Spanish explorer reached the Philippines in March 1521.”
“In” is used with months, years, decades, and centuries as points of time: “The famous writer was born in April [in 1946, in the 1940s, in the 20th century].”
“In” is used with the seasons as points of time: “He promised not to leave her in autumn [in summer, in spring, in winter].”
“After” is used with events that happen later than another event or point of time: “The overseas worker came home only after the holidays.”
The prepositions for periods or extended time: “since,” “for,” “by,” “from...to,” “from...until,” “during,” “within,” “between,” and “beyond.”
“Since” is used with an event that happens at some time or continuously after another time or event: “She has not watched a movie since last month.” “They have been producing noodles since the war.”
“For” is used with particular durations: “Our president will be abroad for three weeks [not for long, for most of next month].”
“By” is used with an act completed or to be completed by a certain time: “She expects to finish writing the book by April [by then, by the second quarter].”
“From...to” is used to refer to the beginning and end of an activity or event: “The weather was stormy from Wednesday to Friday.”
“From...until” is used to refer to the beginning of one period to the beginning of another: “Our sales rose continuously from Christmas until right before Holy Week.”
“During” is used to refer to a period of time in which an event happens or an activity is done: “She had coffee during the morning break.”
“Between” is used to refer to an action taking place between the beginning and the end of a period: “You must get the job done between now and Friday.”
“Within” is used to refer to an action that must take place or be completed within a given period: “You must get the job done within the week.”
“Beyond” is used to refer to a period of time after a particular event has taken place or a particular time has elapsed: “Beyond the mid-1990s all of our offices had shifted to word processors.”
Prepositions for specific time frames. “In” is used with the three basic time frames: “past,” “present,” “future”: “He was a kindly man in the past.” “She is doing nothing in the present [“...at present” is the preferred usage at present].” “In the future, change the oil of your car regularly.”
“In” is used with prescribed time periods: “The project must be completed in a month [in a year, in five years].”
Next: Dealing with the Prepositional Phrases
Overview: Is your English good enough?
The only surefire way to find out if your English is good enough is to have it measured objectively, independently, and professionally.
Several international testing entities administer English proficiency tests for a fee. In the Philippines, the more frequently used are the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) for largely academic measuring purposes, and the Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC), primarily for business hiring but for academic purposes as well. In other non-English-speaking countries like Korea, Japan, and China, another popular test is the multilevel General Test for English Language Proficiency (G-TELP), and in the British Commonwealth—Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand—there’s the International English Language Testing System (IELTS). All of these tests have proven track records in measuring one’s capacity for using English to learn and to do real-world transactions, and are aggressively used by governments, academe, and private enterprises for hiring, admission, placement, and training.
These tests focus on specific areas of English competence, particularly grammar and vocabulary, listening comprehension, and reading comprehension, but the more specialized and comprehensive ones cover writing ability and speaking competence as well. In grammar, of course, you are tested for your depth in using the various parts, functions, structures, and uses of English, which of course include vocabulary, the various parts of speech, and the formation of coherent and meaningful sentences. In listening comprehension, you are tested for your capacity to make sense of spoken English such as monologues, lectures, and conversations. In reading comprehension, you are tested for how well you can understand printed English and its permutations into coherent written paragraphs and passages. Finally, in the more specialized English tests for writing and speaking, you are tested for how well you can capture in writing your own perceptions, ideas, and opinions, and for how well you can give utterance to them.
When governments, companies, and schools administer these English proficiency tests, they do so largely with a selfish motive. Because of trade and business globalization for which English is the lingua franca, they naturally want to admit or hire—all things being equal—people with demonstrably higher English skills than the usual, and to routinely weed out those whose English doesn’t meet their standards. This is where you should not allow them to catch you unaware and unprepared. Your company, your school, and your relatives will rarely be of help here, so you just need to aggressively help yourself. The idea is not to wait for these tests to be foisted on you blind but to put yourself in an excellent position not only to pass but to excel in them.
The best way to start is to find out in what areas of English you are weak, and what the English proficiency tests look like and feel like. This will give you ample time to hone yourself like an athlete preparing for the Olympics, taking intensive English review lessons or practice tests in the areas where you need improvement. Some of these testing entities will even test you as an individual rather than as part of a herd for mandatory testing, so you can independently establish solid benchmarks for progressive self-improvement long before you take or encounter the required levels of these tests. Later, when you have already attained your own English proficiency goals, you can take the tests again and receive a proficiency certificate acceptable to the institutions that recognize these tests.
So whether your goal is simply to beat the rest of the aspirants in the college entrance tests of the University of the Philippines, Ateneo, or La Salle, get that plum first job in Makati or Ortigas or Alabang, gain admission to graduate or doctoral school in the United States or Canada, or pass that visa or immigration interview for a foreign country of your choice, it will truly be worth your while to polish your English without letup, then to have it measured independently before some interested entity does it on you in those make-or-break ways where there are rarely any second chances.
