Portuguese Language and Written Expression
Core concepts
A candidate must master orthography and the 1990 Orthographic Agreement (abolition of the trema, new hyphenation rules, loss of silent consonants), accentuation (oxítonas, paroxítonas, proparoxítonas; hiato rules), morphology and syntax (subject–verb agreement, regency, nominal and verbal concordance), punctuation, lexical semantics (synonymy, antonymy, ambiguity), and textual cohesion and coherence. Formal written expression-register, clarity, and the structure of an argumentative paragraph-is frequently tested.
Traps
Questions exploit homophones (mas/mais, há/a, porque/por que/porquê), crase (à vs a), and agreement with collective or partitive subjects. Another classic trap is confusing regência of verbs like assistir, obedecer, preferir. In interpretation items, distractors quote the text but invert its meaning, so always return to the passage.
Worked example / rule of thumb
Rule: proparoxytone words are always accented (e.g., lâmpada, médico, público). For crase, test by substituting a masculine noun: if ao appears, use à - "Vou à escola" → "Vou ao colégio." For agreement, locate the subject before choosing the verb form; with "a maioria dos alunos", the verb may agree with the singular collective or the plural partitive, but not arbitrarily.
Strategy
Read the whole sentence before deciding; eliminate options that break concordance or regency regardless of meaning.