Grammar and Sentence Structure
The Grammar and Sentence Structure domain tests control, not just recognition: can you build a sentence whose subject, verb, and modifiers agree, and whose clauses are correctly joined? Items appear as error identification, sentence completion, transformation, and rewriting.
Clause architecture
Find the main clause first, then the subordinate ones. A finite clause needs a subject and a finite verb; a participle clause has neither. Two finite clauses cannot be joined by a comma alone (comma splice), and although … but or because … so doubles a conjunction English uses only once.
Verb forms
- Tense and aspect must match time markers: by 2010 he had left (past perfect); by next year he will have left.
- Mandative subjunctive after insist, demand, suggest, require, recommend: They insisted that he resign, not resigns.
- Unreal conditionals: If I were…; inverted Had I known…, Were it not for….
- It is the first time that he has… takes the present perfect.
Non-finite clauses and modifiers
A participle opening a sentence attaches to the subject of the main clause: Walking home, she saw the lights (she was walking). If the intended subject differs, the modifier dangles: Walking home, the lights were seen is wrong.
Agreement and reference
- Each, every, neither, either, one of take a singular verb; but one of the students who were… takes the plural inside the relative clause.
- The number of + singular verb; a number of + plural verb.
- Neither … nor agrees with the nearer subject.
- A pronoun needs one unambiguous antecedent.
Parallelism and comparison
Items in a list or after than/as must share grammatical form: She likes swimming, hiking, and cycling. Compare like with like: The population of Tokyo is larger than that of Osaka, not than Osaka.
Worked example
___ in the 1890s, the bridge still carries traffic today. Options: Built / Building / Having built / To build. The subject is the bridge, which was built; it does not build anything, so the active forms building and having built fail. To build suggests purpose or futurity. The past participle Built is a reduced passive relative clause (which was built). Answer: Built.
Traps that cost marks
- Dangling participles whose implied subject is not the main subject.
- Comma splices and run-on sentences joined by however or therefore.
- Despite followed by a clause without the fact that.
- Mismatched comparatives (than Osaka for than that of Osaka).
- Unmotivated tense shifts in the middle of a sentence.