Language Conventions: Control the Common Structures
Language Conventions covers grammar, vocabulary choice, spelling and punctuation. It is tested directly - error correction, fill-in-the-blank, choosing the right verb form - and indirectly, because the same errors lower your Written Production score. The exam rewards secure control of common structures far more than rare structures used badly.
Verb tenses that carry most of the marks
- Simple present vs present continuous: facts and habits vs now or temporary ("She works at the café" / "She's working tonight").
- Simple past vs past continuous: finished action vs action in progress, often interrupted ("I was walking home when it started to rain").
- Present perfect vs simple past: experience or unfinished time with since/for vs a finished time marker ("I have lived here for three years" / "I moved here in 2021").
- Future: will for decisions and predictions, going to for plans and visible evidence.
- Conditionals: first for real future ("If it rains, we will stay in"), second for unreal present ("If I had more time, I would join").
Other high-frequency targets
- Subject-verb agreement: "everyone has", "the news is", "there are three reasons".
- Modal + base verb: "must go", never "must to go".
- Gerund or infinitive after verbs: enjoy doing, want to do, look forward to doing.
- Uncountable nouns: information, advice, furniture, homework - no plural, no "an".
- Fixed prepositions: interested in, good at, depend on, arrive at school.
- Punctuation: comma after an introductory phrase and before but/so joining two clauses; its = possession, it's = it is; plurals take s without an apostrophe.
Worked example
Correct this sentence: "Everyone in my class have been to the museum, but we didn't enjoyed it because the guide spoke too fastly."
- have → has: "everyone" is singular.
- didn't enjoyed → didn't enjoy: after did/didn't, use the base form.
- too fastly → too fast: "fast" is already an adverb.
Reasoning: each error is a rule, not a feeling - locate the verb, check the subject, then check what comes immediately before the verb.
Traps
- Long, complex sentences where one slip damages three clauses.
- Spelling patterns: stop → stopped (double consonant), study → studied, write → writing.
- Apostrophe errors: CD's for CDs, students for student's.
- Mixing British and American spelling in one text (colour/color) - choose one.
- "Very" and "a lot" used instead of a precise word.