English Language and Literature
Grammar and usage
The paper typically tests parts of speech, tense and aspect, subject-verb agreement, articles and prepositions, voice, narration (direct/indirect), conditional sentences, degrees of comparison, and correction of common errors. Learn the rules you can apply mechanically: singular subjects take singular verbs; collective nouns may take singular or plural verbs depending on emphasis; ‘none’ and ‘each’ are usually singular; ‘since’ pairs with perfect tenses; ‘hardly…when’ and ‘no sooner…than’ are fixed pairs.
Vocabulary and comprehension
Expect synonyms, antonyms, one-word substitutions, idioms and phrases, spelling, and cloze passages. Build a bank of high-frequency academic words and phrasal verbs. For comprehension, read the question stems first, then scan the passage for the sentence that answers each.
Literature
Know major periods and figures: Shakespeare (tragedy, comedy, sonnet), the Romantic poets (Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats, Shelley, Byron), the Victorians (Tennyson, Browning, Dickens, Hardy), the moderns (Yeats, Eliot, Woolf, Joyce), and American writers (Whitman, Frost, Hemingway, Faulkner). Be ready to match author, work, and genre.
Traps
Questions hide errors in long sentences, use ‘since/for’ swaps, or offer a synonym that is only loosely related. Literature items often mix up a poet with a novelist or a work with its author.
Rule of thumb
For error spotting, read the sentence aloud and test each underlined part against a rule you can name; if you cannot name the rule, the part is probably correct.
Worked example
“No sooner had he reached the station when the train left.” The fixed pair is ‘no sooner…than’, so ‘when’ must become ‘than’; the past perfect after ‘no sooner’ is correct.