English: Reading, Grammar and Written Expression
Core content
The English paper is built on four skills. Reading comprehension asks for the main idea, specific detail, inference (what does the writer suggest?), vocabulary in context, and the writer's purpose. Grammar covers the tenses (simple present and past, present perfect, future), subject–verb agreement, articles, prepositions, pronouns, comparatives and superlatives, modal verbs and conditional sentences. Language use includes active and passive voice, direct and indirect (reported) speech, question tags, and word formation (happy → unhappy → happiness). Writing tests a short composition - a letter, a paragraph, a story or a description of a process - together with punctuation: capital letters, full stops, commas in lists, apostrophes and quotation marks.
Traps to expect
- Distractor options that copy a word from the passage but do not answer the question. Read the whole sentence and the sentence before it.
- Questions containing 'except' or 'NOT'; underline the negative word before choosing.
- Reported speech: 'I am tired,' he said becomes He said that he was tired - the tense shifts one step back.
- Subject–verb agreement when a phrase sits between the subject and its verb.
- Using 'less' with countable nouns where 'fewer' is required.
Worked example
Choose the correct verb: 'The list of names ___ on the desk.' The subject is 'list', which is singular; 'of names' is only a prepositional phrase and does not control the verb. Answer: is.
Rule of thumb: find the true subject, cover the interrupting phrase with your finger, and read the sentence again. For reported speech, shift the tense one step into the past unless the statement is a general truth.