Grammar and Vocabulary (Language Use)
What the section tests
This section checks control of tense and aspect, agreement, articles, prepositions, conditionals, modals, word formation, and collocation. Items are usually multiple-choice sentences or short gap-fills, so precision matters more than speed.
Concepts to master
- Tense and aspect: present perfect vs. past simple (finished time vs. unfinished/experience), continuous for ongoing actions, future forms for plans vs. predictions.
- Subject–verb agreement: watch for intervening phrases ("The list of items is"), and indefinite pronouns (everyone is).
- Articles: a/an for first mention and countable singulars; the for shared/specific reference; zero article for general plurals and abstract nouns.
- Conditionals: first (real future), second (unreal present), third (unreal past); mixed forms follow meaning.
- Modals of deduction and obligation: must/can't (certainty), might (possibility), should (advice), have to (external obligation).
- Prepositions and collocation: depend on, interested in, good at; fixed verb–noun pairs (make a decision, take part).
- Word formation: suffix and prefix patterns (happy→happiness, decide→decision).
Traps to expect
- Time markers that force a tense (yesterday, since 2010, by the time).
- "Almost right" distractors that differ by one preposition or article.
- Countable/uncountable confusion (information, advice, furniture are uncountable).
- False friends and near-synonyms with different collocations.
Worked rule of thumb
Read the whole sentence and find the time signal before choosing. Example: "She ___ here since 2019." Since points to a state continuing to now → present perfect: has worked. "She ___ here in 2019" (finished past) → worked. Same verb, different signal, different tense.
Practice habit
Keep an error log by category (tense, article, preposition) and review it weekly.