English: Grammar, Vocabulary and Comprehension
What you must understand
English questions reward precision, not vocabulary display. Cover four areas: grammar (subject-verb agreement, tense consistency, articles, prepositions, pronoun reference), vocabulary (synonyms, antonyms, one-word substitutions, idioms), sentence structure (spotting the erroneous part, sentence improvement), and comprehension (main idea, inference, tone).
Traps to expect
- Collective and tricky subjects: "The team is playing" (unit) vs "The team are arguing among themselves" (individuals). Words like each, everyone, neither take singular verbs.
- Distractors that are grammatically fine but change meaning in sentence-improvement items. Choose the option that keeps the original sense.
- Idioms taken literally: "to bite the bullet" means to endure pain, not to eat metal.
- Comprehension questions about the author's tone - the answer must be supported by the passage, not by your opinion.
Rule of thumb
For error-spotting, read the sentence aloud and test each underlined part in isolation. Most errors sit in agreement, tense, or preposition choice.
Worked example
"One of the boys ___ absent." Options: (a) are (b) is. The true subject is One, not boys, so the verb is singular: is. The plural noun next to the blank is the trap.
Practice habit
Keep a notebook of every idiom and confusable pair you meet (affect/effect, principal/principle) and revise it weekly.