<hijack>
I always remember the difference by thinking i.e. means “in other words,” while e.g. means “for example.”
</hijack>
My personal favorites:
Myriad: See if he corrects “myriad of opportunities” to just “myriad opportunities.”
Pique: You pique one’s interest, not “peak” as I see so many people write it.
Definitely include something dealing with noun/pronoun usage (eg, “Smith Toyota is having their annual truck sale!”) I hear this all the time on the radio and always end up yelling at the announcer.
Add a comma splice or two. My 12th-grade English teacher used to deduct a full letter grade for each comma splice that appeared in an essay.
If you want to be truly evil, you can ask the applicant how to write “attorneys general” as a possessive. That one almost stumped the copy desk chief in my office this afternoon. 
I just thought of this: add something that requires the applicant to check some basic math. For example, “The poll shows that 46 percent of respondents are strongly against the proposed law, 38 percent are strongly in favor of it and 22 percent don’t care.”
Yes on a), and for b), we spell out through nine, but do digits for 10 and up.
Probably not – too far, though I may be there in early June.
As for other suggestions:
See if the use of “faze” phases the candidate.
People continuously misuse “continually.”
Or how about taking a page from Atlanta Nights.
The window faces east, the perfect place to sit an watch the sun go down.
Or mention something is blue in paragraph one and say it’s green (using a synonym for “green”) in paragraph two.
As a matter of fact, use a few paragraphs from Atlanta Nights (see link in my sig) as the basis.
I don’t have much that hasn’t already been said, except can you fit in something about someone waiting in a “Que” (queue).
Our standard is to spell out everything up to nineteen. What’s more important than remembering an absolute rule is choosing a style and staying with it consistently within a document or project. As much of a grammar nazi as I am, there’s no way I can make an ironclad case that fourteen must be spelled out by everyone, everywhere. If, however, you say “fourteen years ago he bought 15 acres of land,” it’s off to the camps with you.
A few more ideas:
We went to New York, Boston, and Philadelphia. Do you want coffee, tea, or milk? (no comma before an ‘and’ or an ‘or’ in a list)
e-mail/email (both are fine, but check for consistency)
emigrate from v. immigrate to (you can also catch them on the spelling of emigrate)
discreet v. discrete
I’m in favor of the serial comma.
That’s how I was taught.
Ditto! This one always bugs me.
Well, I’d mark it wrong if I saw it, but ok. You can still use this as a test to see how consistent the applicant is: use a serial comma in one sentence, then drop it in another within the same article.
That’s the proper way to do it: the serial comma is an issue of style, so the real issue is to be consistent.
I am proud to report that I’m finding it horrendously painful to write this badly. I’m coming up with some good stuff though – like misusing “literally.” Hee!
[QUOTE=twickster]
[ul]
[li]Screwy punctuation (semicolons or something; comma outside quotes?)[/li][li]Sentence-ending preposition (see above 
)[/ul][/li][/QUOTE]
I’d be very careful with these–I’ve been in a number of different shops, and some will go for the “comma outside quotes” and some will be the opposite. When I taught writing skills, my students came from a number of different writing backgrounds, some of whom did it one way, and some the other.
What I was really looking for in these situations was consistency. Any decent writer can write to a style guide (assuming, of course, that he or she is given the style guide, and/or a good model). But can he or she do so consistently, without any of an old client’s writing style appearing randomly? Or without Miss Thistlebottom’s Grade 3 lessons coming to the fore occasionally?
Consistency is key, I find. In a test, even if you do not write in accordance with our house style, but if your “errors” are consistent (and accepted in other styles), then I had no problem. Just show me consistency. If you can demonstrate consistency, I will train you in our house style, because I then know that once you have our rules, you will follow them consistently.
As for the sentence ending with a preposition–you know that’s a crock, right? It’s okay in English to end a sentence with a preposition. However, if you wanted to have an exercise where a preposition ends a sentence, and you wanted to see if the examinee could convert it effortlessly into a sentence where the preposition does not end the sentence (and vice versa), then I’d see that as a valid exercise. But to throw a sentence ending with a preposition at an examinee, and grade him or her on the basis of whether he or she says, “This is wrong,” well, I don’t believe that is a good approach.
I’m not expecting anyone to get 100% on this – I’m just curious to see what they catch and what they miss. There are judgment calls all over the place in editing, and I want to see how good someone’s judgment is. Plus whether they know anything about spelling and punctuation.
Yes, according to Dictionary.com.
Most industries have a style book, followed by a first-reference dictionary (New World College Dictionary, Third Edition, for example) that should be used when the information cannot be found in the style book. Dictionary.com is a nice quick reference, but I would NEVER trust it as a source when editing.
I would add “who” and “that” to your list, twickster. As in:
a. The man who stole my lunch went that way!
b. The lunch that had a killer cheese steak sandwich and a vanilla pudding cup in it was stolen!
Also, “it’s” and “its,” and the ever-popular “ensure,” “assure,” and “insure” are my personal favorites.
Oooh, less vs. fewer…
I’m in complete agreeance with every error listed in this thread.
The italicized word is, without a doubt, the worst error in the English language. Or it should be. Punishable by death. Yes, I know it was an 18th century word. I don’t give a shit. I’ll go away now…
- Peter Wiggen
OMG, I hope you’re not interviewing him for a tech writing position. I think giving editing tests for tech writing is a bit silly, unless the person has no work experience in the field.
Having said that, I think that these grammar and spelling nits are not nearly as interesting as some other stuff.
If it is a tech writing job, I think you should give a substantive/organizational editing and rhetorical writing test. See if this person knows how to organize material and write clearly. Some things you could check:
[ol]
[li]Does he/she know to query the author if a point is vague?[/li][li]Does he/she know how to interview for information?[/li][li]Does he/she catch excessive use of the passive?[/li][li]Does he/she catch noun strings, jargon, and so forth?[/li][/ol]