Knowledge of Language Structures and Vocabulary
What this domain tests
This domain underpins all others: accurate grammar, control of verb systems, pronoun use, agreement and a wide, precise vocabulary. It appears in discrete items, cloze passages and in the accuracy marks of written tasks.
Concepts to master
- Verb system: present, pretérito perfeito, pretérito imperfeito, pretérito mais-que-perfeito (tinha falado), futuro do presente, conditional, subjunctive present and imperfect (que eu faça, se eu fizesse), and personal infinitive (antes de sairmos).
- Ser versus estar versus ficar: inherent/permanent qualities, states and change of state.
- Pronoun placement: proclisis (não me disse), enclisis (disse-me) and mesoclisis in European Portuguese; Brazilian preference for proclisis.
- Agreement: gender and number of nouns and adjectives; haver impersonal (houve problemas).
- Word formation: prefixes and suffixes, and the vocabulary of everyday topics (family, health, environment, technology, work).
Traps to watch for
- Subjunctive triggers: embora, para que, é importante que, caso, se (future/hypothetical).
- Confusing por and para, há and desde, muito and muita.
- Irregular verbs in the pretérito: fazer → fiz, vir → vim, trazer → trouxe, pôr → pus.
- Accents that change meaning: é/e, está/esta, pôde/pode, avô/avó.
Rule of thumb
When checking a sentence, ask: Who does what, when, and does it agree? Identify the subject, choose the tense from the time marker, then check person, gender and number.
Worked example
Complete: «Embora ___ (chover) muito, decidimos sair.» Embora requires the subjunctive, so chova. If the clause were «Como ___ muito…», the indicative chovia or choveu would be correct. Signal words, not intuition, determine mood.