Portuguese Language
Core concepts
The Portuguese component tests reading comprehension, grammar, vocabulary and written expression in standard European/Angolan Portuguese. Focus on: identifying the main idea and supporting details in a text; distinguishing fact from opinion; classes of words (substantivo, adjectivo, verbo, advérbio, pronome, preposição, conjunção); verb tenses and moods (presente, pretérito perfeito e imperfeito, futuro, condicional, subjuntivo); agreement of gender and number between nouns, adjectives and articles; pronoun placement (próclise, ênclise, mesóclise); accentuation rules; synonyms, antonyms and word formation; and writing clear, coherent paragraphs with correct punctuation.
Traps to expect
- Pretérito perfeito versus imperfeito: the perfect describes a completed action, the imperfect a habitual or ongoing past state.
- Agreement errors in long noun phrases, especially with collective nouns.
- Pronoun placement: in formal written Portuguese, sentences rarely begin with an object pronoun (use ênclise or an attracting word such as não, que, já for próclise).
- False friends from English (e.g. actualmente means currently, not actually).
- Accents change meaning: é (is) versus e (and); pôr versus por.
Rule of thumb
For comprehension questions, answer strictly from the passage: locate the sentence that supports your choice and reject options that add information not stated, even if they seem true in general.
Worked example
Choose the correct form: Quando era criança, eu ___ (brincar) no quintal todos os dias. The repeated past action calls for the imperfect: brincava. By contrast, Ontem eu brinquei no quintal reports a single completed event and uses the perfect.