Language Use: Open Cloze, Word Formation and Collocation
What the language use domain tests
Grammar and vocabulary are tested discretely - open cloze with one word per gap, word formation from a given stem, multiple choice on vocabulary and dependent prepositions, and sentence-level transformation. This is the most learnable part of the exam: the tested areas recur, and the errors are predictable.
Rules that decide marks
- In open cloze, decide the word class first. If a noun follows, you need an article, determiner or preposition; if a past participle follows, you may need have/has/had or be; if a clause follows, a conjunction.
- Tense logic: present perfect for experience and unfinished time (since 2015, so far, already), past simple with finished time markers (in 2019, last year, ago), past perfect for the earlier of two past events.
- Articles: a/an for first mention and professions; the for second mention, superlatives, unique referents, rivers and seas; zero article for languages, meals, most countries and generic plurals (Cars cause pollution).
- Word formation: identify the slot's word class, then apply suffixes (-tion, -ment, -ness, -ity, -able, -ive, -ous, -ful, -less) and negative prefixes (un-, in-, im-, ir-, il-, dis-, mis-).
- Learn verbs with their dependent prepositions as single units: depend on, interested in, good at, arrive at a place / in a city, pay attention to.
- Collocation, not translation, decides vocabulary items: heavy rain, strong wind, take a photo, make a decision, do research.
Worked example
Gap 1: She has been working at the clinic ___ 2015. Reasoning: present perfect continuous plus a point in time. For takes a duration (for six years); since takes a starting point. Answer: since.
Gap 2: The ___ (DECIDE) was postponed. Reasoning: the slot needs a singular noun, subject of was postponed. The verb decide forms decision with -sion, not decidence. Answer: decision.
Traps
- Writing two words in a one-word gap (in order to, a lot of) - marked wrong.
- For with a point in time, or since with a duration.
- Wrong negative prefix: unpossible, inresponsible, unconsistent.
- Confusables Estonian speakers meet constantly: actual/current, lend/borrow, sensible/sensitive, effect/affect, economical/economic.
- Leaving a gap blank: an open cloze item is worth the same as a multiple-choice one, and a reasoned guess costs nothing.