84 / PART ONE: THE BASICS These five sentences all start with ‘she’ so the passage does not flow. Is the following example better? Cautiously opening the door, Tina saw who stood on the doorstep so she hurriedly closed it. Running back to the dining room, the child started to cry. She was dis- traught. Sentences 3 and 4 have been combined and only the last sentence starts with ‘she’ while two of the pronouns have been replaced with nouns. The writing is much ‘tighter’. When using adjectives to compare two things or people ‘-er’ is usually added to the base word. This is known as the comparative. The base word is ‘positive’. When more than two things or people are involved, ‘-est’ is added to the adjective. This is known as the superlative: She is taller than I am. He is slower than she is. positive comparative superlative big bigger biggest positive comparative big bigger happy happier slow slower tall taller MAKING COMPARISONS