Grammar and Usage
What this domain tests
Grammar questions check whether you control verb forms, agreement, articles, pronouns, prepositions, and sentence structure well enough to choose the only grammatically correct option.
Concepts to master
- Tense and aspect. Present perfect links past to present (has lived here since 2010); past simple marks a finished time (lived there in 2010). Time markers such as since, for, ago, already, and yet are strong clues.
- Subject-verb agreement. Find the true subject, ignoring prepositional phrases: The box of tools is heavy. Words like each, everyone, and neither are singular.
- Conditionals. First: If it rains, we will stay. Second: If I knew, I would tell you. Third: If she had called, I would have answered.
- Passive voice. Use it when the doer is unknown or unimportant: The bridge was built in 1900.
- Articles and countability. A/an for singular countable nouns; the for specific reference; no article for general plurals.
- Word order in questions and reported speech. Backshift tenses in reported statements.
Traps to expect
- A distractor that is correct in isolation but clashes with a time marker.
- Long subjects that hide a singular noun.
- Mixed conditionals and wish clauses.
- Preposition collocations that sound right but are not standard (depend of for depend on).
Rule of thumb
Locate the time expression and the true subject first; they eliminate most wrong options before you read the rest. Then check the remaining option in the full sentence aloud.
Worked example
By the time we arrived, the film ___ . Options: started, has started, had started, starts. By the time we arrived sets a past reference point, and the film started before it, so the past perfect had started is required.