Kaoyan English common mistakes
Kaoyan English · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
In the cloze section, choosing each blank's word by reading only the sentence that contains it, then moving on without rereading the completed paragraph.
The cloze passage is one coherent text with lexical chains and pronoun references that cross sentence boundaries; a locally plausible word (e.g., 'however' where the logic is additive, or a noun that clashes with the paragraph's topic) is often wrong once the surrounding two or three sentences are read. Candidates under time pressure default to sentence-level collocation matching because it feels fast and usually yields a 'sounds right' answer.
What to do instead
Do two passes. Pass one: fill only blanks you are confident about and mark the rest. Pass two: reread the entire passage start to finish with your choices inserted, checking (a) connective logic against the previous sentence, (b) whether the chosen word's register and collocations fit the paragraph topic, and (c) that no word is repeated where the text signals variation. Budget roughly 15-18 minutes for the whole cloze and never leave a blank empty.
Treating the cloze's vocabulary items as isolated word-definition questions, picking the option with the closest Chinese translation rather than the one that collocates with the specific noun or verb in the text.
Preparing with bilingual word lists trains one-to-one meaning mapping, but the cloze tests collocation, preposition choice, and idiomatic pairing (e.g., which verb goes with 'responsibility', which preposition follows 'insight'). Several options are near-synonyms that differ only in collocational range, so translation equivalence does not discriminate.
What to do instead
For every option set, say the whole phrase aloud: 'X + the surrounding words'. Reject options that are grammatical but idiomatically odd. Build a personal collocation log from past papers and from reading (verb+noun, adjective+noun, preposition patterns), and review it weekly rather than memorising single-word glosses.
In Reading Part A, reading the passage first at full attention, then reading the questions, then hunting back through the text for each answer from scratch.
This feels thorough but doubles reading time and, worse, it means the questions do not guide attention during the first read. Many candidates run out of time on the fourth passage precisely because they did three full slow reads plus four re-scans.
What to do instead
Adopt question-first scanning: read the stem and options of question 1, note the key noun or proper noun, then read the passage until you locate that content, answer, and continue. For main-idea or title questions, defer them until you have answered the detail questions, since those have already told you the passage's structure. Cap each passage at about 18 minutes.
Answering inference and attitude questions with a statement that is true in the real world or true elsewhere in the passage, but not entailed by the specific lines the question points to.
Options are deliberately built from plausible general knowledge and from other parts of the text, so recognition memory ('I read something like this') fires and overrides the actual entailment check. Candidates also confuse 'the author mentions X' with 'the author believes X'.
What to do instead
For every option, return to the text and underline the exact sentence that supports it. If you cannot point to a sentence, the option is wrong even if it is true. For attitude questions, collect the evaluative adjectives and modal verbs the author uses about the topic (e.g., 'regrettably', 'may well', 'is unlikely to') before looking at the options, then match your own summary to the closest option.
Choosing an option that is too broad, too narrow, or too extreme for main-idea and title questions, because it repeats many words from the passage.
Lexical overlap is the easiest signal to detect, so test-writers use it in distractors. A title option that echoes the opening sentence often covers only the first paragraph, while an extreme option ('all', 'never', 'the only solution') overstates a hedged academic claim.
What to do instead
Before looking at options, write a five-to-eight-word summary of the passage's argument in your own words. Then choose the option closest to your summary. Eliminate any option containing absolutes unless the text itself is absolute, and check that the option covers the whole passage, not one paragraph.
In Reading Part B (matching/ordering/headings), matching a heading or paragraph to a section on the basis of a single repeated keyword, and finalising the order before checking that every link in the chain is justified.
The new question type rewards discourse-level reading (topic sentences, pronoun reference, contrast markers, lexical chains), but candidates apply the same keyword-spotting habit they use in Part A. In ordering tasks, one early wrong placement cascades, and candidates rarely revisit it.
What to do instead
For headings, read only the first and last sentence of each paragraph and write a three-word label; match labels to headings, not words to words. For ordering, identify fixed anchors first (an opening definition, a concluding recommendation), then use cohesive devices ('this claim', 'by contrast', 'a second objection') to place the rest. After finishing, read the reconstructed sequence as a text and confirm each transition makes sense.
In Part C translation, translating clause by clause in source order, producing Chinese sentences with English word order, dangling modifiers, and literal renderings of idioms and passive constructions.
Time pressure and the habit of translating word-by-word from exam practice lead to calques. Candidates also skip the step of reading the whole sentence for its main subject-verb-object before writing, so long English sentences with embedded relative clauses get chopped into fragments.
What to do instead
Do three steps per sentence: (1) bracket the main clause and mark subordinate clauses and their logical relation (cause, concession, condition); (2) draft in Chinese, reordering modifiers before the noun and converting unnecessary passives to active or subjectless constructions; (3) reread the Chinese alone and fix anything that would not be written by a native speaker. Keep technical terms in their established Chinese form, and do not leave English words untranslated unless no standard term exists.
In Writing Part A, writing a letter or notice that states the purpose but omits the specific content points the prompt requires (dates, reasons, requests, contact details), and using an inappropriate register.
Candidates focus on producing correct sentences and forget that Part A is judged on task completion: the reader must be able to act on the message. Register errors come from mixing memorised formal openings with casual closings, or from writing a notice as if it were a personal letter.
What to do instead
Before writing, list the prompt's content points as a checklist in the margin and tick each one off in the draft. Fix the format first: letter (salutation, body, sign-off), notice (heading, body, issuer and date), email (subject line). Match register throughout: no contractions or slang in a formal notice, consistent polite formulas in a letter. Keep to about 100 words and reserve two minutes to proofread for tense, agreement, and spelling.
In Writing Part B, describing the picture or chart in detail and then appending a generic moral sentence, without analysing causes or proposing anything, and without a clear paragraph structure.
Many candidates memorise a template ('As is vividly shown in the picture...') and treat the essay as description plus slogan. The scoring criteria reward interpreting the phenomenon, discussing its causes or implications, and giving a reasoned conclusion, so description-heavy essays plateau at a mid score regardless of grammar.
What to do instead
Use a three-part plan: paragraph 1 describes only the essential contrast or trend in two or three sentences and names the issue; paragraph 2 analyses two causes or consequences with a concrete example; paragraph 3 states a position and one practical suggestion. Before writing, spend three minutes drafting this skeleton in note form. Learn a small set of flexible linkers and analytical phrases rather than long memorised blocks, which examiners discount.
Allocating time uniformly across sections and leaving translation and both writing tasks to the last 40 minutes, then producing a rushed essay with no proofreading.
Candidates practise sections in isolation and never rehearse the full 180-minute paper, so they do not discover that Part A reading passages consume more time than expected. Anxiety about the reading section leads to over-investing there, and the writing section, which is worth a large share of the score, absorbs the loss.
What to do instead
Rehearse the whole paper at least three times under timed conditions with a fixed plan, for example: cloze 15-18 min, Reading Part A 70 min, Part B 15 min, Part C 20 min, Part A writing 15 min, Part B writing 35 min, with 5-10 minutes buffer. Practise abandoning an unanswerable reading question after 90 seconds and moving on; a guessed answer costs less than an unfinished essay.