Language Structures and Usage (Grammar and Vocabulary)
What this domain tests
This section checks explicit control of English grammar and vocabulary: tense and aspect, subject–verb agreement, articles, prepositions, conditionals, reported speech, modality, word formation, collocation, and register. Items are usually single sentences with one gap or one error to find.
Concepts to master
- Tense and aspect: perfect vs. simple (has lived vs. lived), and time markers (since, for, ago, by the time).
- Agreement: intervening phrases (the box of pens is), and collective or indefinite subjects (each, everyone, neither).
- Conditionals: second vs. third (If I were / If I had known, I would have).
- Reported speech and backshift: tense, pronoun, and time-word shifts.
- Articles and countability: a/an/the/zero, and uncountable nouns (information, advice, furniture).
- Collocation and dependent prepositions: depend on, interested in, responsible for.
Traps to expect
Distractors are often grammatically plausible but wrong on one feature: a tense that clashes with the time marker, a preposition that sounds natural but is not the fixed collocation, or a word with the right meaning but wrong form (economic vs. economical). Watch for subject–verb agreement across a phrase and for double negatives.
Rule of thumb
Find the time signal and the subject first; they eliminate most options before meaning is considered. Then test the remaining options aloud for collocation.
Worked example
"By the time we arrived, the film ___ ." Options: started / has started / had started / starts. By the time + past arrival requires past perfect for the earlier event: had started.