Idioms and Phrases
What idioms require
An idiom is a fixed expression whose meaning cannot be deduced from its individual words. Questions ask you to supply the meaning, complete the phrase, choose the correct preposition or article, or use the expression correctly in a sentence. Beyond idioms proper, you should know phrasal verbs (give up, put off, look into), prepositional phrases (in the long run, at stake), and fixed collocations (make a decision, take measures).
Traps that appear in questions
- Literal reading. "To let the cat out of the bag" means to reveal a secret, not to release an animal.
- Altered wording. Idioms are frozen: a blessing in disguise, not a hidden blessing; by and large, not by and big.
- Wrong particle in phrasal verbs. Put off (postpone) differs sharply from put out (extinguish) and put up with (tolerate).
- Confusing similar idioms. To smell a rat (suspect something wrong) versus to have rats in the attic is not a standard idiom at all.
- Register mismatch. Many idioms are informal and should not appear in a formal essay.
Worked example
"The manager's decision to resign came as a bolt from the blue."
The idiom a bolt from the blue means a sudden, unexpected shock. A question might ask what the sentence implies: the resignation was unforeseen. Note that the idiom carries a negative or startling connotation, so it would not describe a long-expected, welcome promotion.
Rule of thumb
Learn each idiom with a full sentence and its register. If you cannot recall the exact wording, avoid the idiom in your own writing; a plain phrase is safer than a mangled idiom.
Punctuation
The system, not the marks
Punctuation questions test whether you understand clause boundaries and the marks that signal them. The concepts are: the sentence and its independent and dependent clauses; the comma (listing, joining, separating introductory elements, parenthetical insertions); the semicolon (joining related independent clauses, separating complex list items); the colon (introducing an explanation, list, or quotation); the dash and parentheses (parenthetical emphasis); quotation marks; the apostrophe (possession and contraction); and the hyphen versus the dash.
Traps that appear in questions
- The comma splice. "He was tired, he went home" wrongly joins two independent clauses with a comma. Use a semicolon, a full stop, or a conjunction.
- The run-on. Two sentences fused without any mark.
- Apostrophe misuse. Its is possessive; it's means it is. Students' is plural possessive; student's is singular.
- Unnecessary commas. No comma should separate a subject from its verb or split a compound predicate: "She opened the door and walked in" takes no comma.
- Colon after a verb. "The tools are: a hammer and a saw" is wrong; drop the colon.
- Quotation punctuation. In British usage, punctuation that belongs to the quoted material goes inside the quotation marks.
Worked example
Punctuate: "The results were clear the policy had failed."
Two independent clauses with a close logical link. Correct: "The results were clear: the policy had failed." A semicolon ("The results were clear; the policy had failed") is also defensible, but the colon better signals that the second clause explains the first. A comma alone would be a splice.
Rule of thumb
Before inserting any mark, identify the clauses. If both sides of a potential comma could stand alone as sentences, a comma is not enough.
Spelling
Spelling as a system
English spelling is not random; it follows patterns that can be learned. Focus on: common letter patterns and vowel combinations; prefixes and suffixes and how they attach; the doubling rule for consonants; the dropped e rule; i before e; British versus American spellings; and homophones, which are the most frequent source of error in examination scripts.
Traps that appear in questions
- Homophones. Their/there/they're, to/too/two, your/you're, its/it's, weather/whether, advice/advise, practice/practise, principal/principle, stationary/stationery, complement/compliment.
- Silent letters. Government (not goverment), February, Wednesday, receipt, knowledge.
- Doubled consonants. Accommodate, occurrence, committee, embarrass, necessary (one c, two s), recommend (one c, two m).
- Suffix changes. Happy becomes happiness; begin becomes beginning; argue becomes argument (the e is dropped).
- British convention. The BCS paper follows British spelling: colour, organise or organize consistently, centre, programme, defence, licence (noun) versus license (verb).
Worked example
Choose the correctly spelled word: (a) accomodation (b) accommodation (c) acommodation.
The correct form is (b): accommodation has double c and double m. A useful anchor is the phrase "two cs, two ms, two rooms." Mnemonics tied to meaning are more reliable than rote repetition.
Rule of thumb
Keep a personal error list. When you misspell a word, write the correct form, the rule it breaks, and a sentence using it. Review that list weekly; most candidates repeat the same dozen errors.
Sentence Correction
The skill being tested
Sentence correction asks you to locate and repair errors within a given sentence, or to choose the version that is grammatically and stylistically sound. The concepts you must command are the same as in grammar, but applied diagnostically: agreement, tense consistency, parallelism, pronoun reference, misplaced and dangling modifiers, comparative constructions, redundancy, and idiomatic preposition use.
Traps that appear in questions
- Faulty parallelism. "She likes reading, to swim, and cycling" must become "reading, swimming, and cycling."
- Unclear pronoun reference. "Rahim told Karim that he had won" leaves he ambiguous; rewrite with a name.
- Illogical comparison. "The population of Dhaka is larger than Sylhet" compares a population with a city; add that of.
- Double negatives and redundant pairs. Return back, discuss about, more better, the reason is because.
- Tense shifts. "He entered the room and sits down" must be consistent.
- Misplaced modifiers. "She served sandwiches to the children on paper plates" suggests the children are on plates.
Worked example
Correct: "No sooner had the bell rung than the students left."
Candidates often write "No sooner the bell rang when..." The fixed pattern is No sooner had... than..., with inversion after the negative opener. Recognising such frames saves time: hardly... when, scarcely... when, not only... but also.
Rule of thumb
Read the sentence for meaning first, then check it in this order: verb agreement, tense, parallelism, pronoun clarity, modifiers, and idioms. Most errors fall into one of these six categories, and a checklist prevents you from fixing the wrong thing.