Cantabria PAU Foreign Language II - English common mistakes
Cantabria PAU Foreign Language II - English · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
Answering true/false or multiple-choice comprehension items from a single matching word in the text rather than from the meaning of the whole sentence or paragraph that contains it.
Under time pressure candidates scan for a keyword from the question, find it, and stop reading; distractors are deliberately built around repeated vocabulary and paraphrased ideas, so keyword-matching rewards surface overlap instead of comprehension.
What to do instead
Locate the keyword, then read the full sentence before and the sentence after it, and restate the relevant idea in your own words before choosing. Ask 'does the text actually say this, or does it only mention these words?' Reject an option if you cannot point to the specific clause that supports it.
Treating 'according to the text' items as open questions and answering from personal knowledge or opinion instead of from what the passage states.
Familiar topics (technology, environment, health, education) invite candidates to import outside facts, and an option that is true in the real world feels safer than one they must verify in the text.
What to do instead
Before answering, mark whether the item says 'according to the text' or asks for your own view. For text-based items, every answer must be traceable to a line in the passage; if the passage is silent, the option is wrong even if it is factually true.
Missing the global items (main idea, purpose, best title, author's tone) by choosing an option that is true but covers only one paragraph or one detail.
Candidates read paragraph by paragraph and remember the most vivid detail; a true-but-narrow option feels well supported, and tone questions are skipped because the vocabulary of attitude (critical, cautious, optimistic) is not firmly known.
What to do instead
Read the whole passage once for gist before answering anything, then summarise it in one sentence of your own. For title/main-idea items, eliminate any option that describes only part of the text or that goes beyond it, and check that the chosen option covers the opening and closing paragraphs as well as the middle.
Guessing vocabulary-in-context items from the most common dictionary meaning of the word instead of the meaning it carries in that sentence.
Polysemous words (run, figure, issue, charge, address, matter) are usually tested in a secondary sense, and candidates recall the first meaning they learned rather than re-reading the surrounding clause.
What to do instead
Cover the target word, read the sentence, and predict a synonym in your own words; only then compare with the options. Substitute each option back into the sentence and check that the grammar and collocations still work, since a synonym that fits the meaning but not the structure is a distractor.
Filling gaps with a word of the right meaning but the wrong grammatical form - wrong tense, wrong part of speech, singular for plural, or an adjective where an adverb is required.
Candidates translate the gap from their first language and stop once the meaning fits, without checking agreement with the subject, the time reference in the sentence, or the word class demanded by the surrounding structure.
What to do instead
After choosing, run a three-point check on the completed sentence: (1) does the verb agree with its subject and match the time markers? (2) is the word class correct for its slot (article/noun, adverb modifying verb or adjective, adjective before noun)? (3) do prepositions and collocations sound right? Change the form, not the word, if only the form is wrong.
Leaving word-formation gaps in the base form, or producing a form that exists but is the wrong derivative (successful for successfully, economic for economical, sensible for sensitive).
Candidates know the root word and assume the examiner will accept it; negative prefixes, -ness/-ity/-ment/-ance suffixes and the -ed/-ing adjective pair are learned unevenly, and confusable pairs are memorised as single items without their distinct meanings.
What to do instead
For each gap, decide the required word class first, then apply the suffix, then check whether the sentence needs a negative prefix (un-, in-, im-, ir-, il-, dis-, non-). Keep a personal list of confusable pairs (economic/economical, sensible/sensitive, historical/historic) with one example sentence each, and revise it before the exam.
Writing a composition that answers only part of the prompt - for example giving an opinion when the task asks for advantages and disadvantages, or omitting the required recommendation or closing.
Candidates read the first line of the prompt, recognise a familiar topic and start writing from a memorised frame, losing marks for task achievement even when the English is accurate.
What to do instead
Underline every element of the prompt (topic, audience, register, points to cover, word limit) and turn them into a checklist. Spend two minutes on a skeleton plan with one bullet per required element, and check the finished text against the checklist before moving on.
Producing an unparagraphed block of text, or paragraphs that are single sentences, with no clear introduction, development and conclusion and no linking devices between ideas.
Candidates draft directly onto the answer sheet, so organisation is whatever order the ideas arrive in; cohesive devices are known passively (however, therefore, in addition) but not used actively under time pressure.
What to do instead
Use a fixed three- or four-paragraph frame: introduction stating the topic and position, one paragraph per main idea with a topic sentence, and a conclusion. Insert at least one linker per paragraph boundary and check that each linker expresses the right relationship (contrast, cause, addition, example) rather than being decorative.
Mixing register within one text - contractions, idioms and direct address in a formal essay, or stiff academic formulae in an informal email - and misreading the required genre.
Candidates prepare set phrases without attaching them to a genre, so a memorised formal connector appears in an informal message, or the informal 'you know' style of a blog leaks into an opinion essay.
What to do instead
Before writing, decide the genre and the reader and note the register in one word (formal/informal/neutral). For formal texts avoid contractions, exclamation marks and vague words like 'things' or 'a lot of'; for informal messages use contractions and direct address but keep spelling and punctuation standard. Re-read once looking only for register slips.
Making recurring low-level accuracy errors in the candidate's own writing - subject-verb agreement, missing third-person -s, article use, preposition choice, and comma splices or run-on sentences - while attempting ambitious structures.
Attention goes to content and vocabulary during drafting, and errors that were corrected in isolated exercises reappear when the writer is composing; punctuation rules for joining clauses are rarely revised explicitly.
What to do instead
Reserve three to four minutes at the end for a targeted correction pass in a fixed order: verb forms and agreement, then articles and prepositions, then sentence boundaries (every clause joined by a full stop, semicolon or conjunction), then spelling. Keep a short personal error list from previous practice and check only those items, since candidates repeat their own patterns.