PAU Foreign Language II: English (Castilla-La Mancha) common mistakes
PAU Foreign Language II: English (Castilla-La Mancha) · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
Answering reading-comprehension questions with your own general knowledge or opinion instead of locating the sentence in the passage that supports the answer, then writing a plausible sentence that never appears in the text.
Under time pressure, candidates recognise the topic of the text and assume they already know the answer; the questions often test a specific detail or the writer's stance, not the general topic, so an unanchored answer sounds right but is not in the text.
What to do instead
For each question, underline the key word, find the paragraph where it occurs, and copy the supporting phrase into your draft before writing the answer. If you cannot point to a line, the answer is wrong. Practise with past-style texts by highlighting evidence first and only then reading the options or writing the response.
Misreading the question type in the reading section: giving a personal opinion where the task asks you to explain what the author says, or answering a True/False/Not Given item as if it were a comprehension question requiring a full sentence.
The instructions are read quickly and skimmed for topic words; candidates default to the answer format they practised most, and Spanish exam habits (answering at length) clash with tasks that want a short justified answer.
What to do instead
Before answering, circle the instruction verb (explain, justify, choose, complete) and note the required length. Build a checklist of the formats used in this exam (short answer, True/False with justification, sentence completion, multiple choice) and rehearse each format separately until the response shape is automatic.
Inferring meaning of an unknown word from Spanish similarity rather than from context, producing false friends such as 'actual' for 'current', 'assist' for 'attend', 'library' for 'bookshop', 'sensible' for 'sensitive', or 'eventually' for 'eventualmente'.
Spanish and English share Latin roots, so the first association that comes to mind is the Spanish cognate; the candidate does not check whether the sentence still makes sense with the English meaning, and false friends are frequent in exam texts about education, technology and society.
What to do instead
Keep a personal false-friend list organised by theme and revise it weekly; when you meet an unknown word, cover it and predict from the surrounding words first, then check. In your own writing, run a final pass specifically hunting the ten false friends you personally get wrong.
Choosing a word that fits grammatically but not collocationally, e.g. 'make a photo', 'do a mistake', 'say a story', 'strong rain', 'very interested in' versus 'highly interested', or 'give an exam' instead of 'take/sit an exam'.
Vocabulary is stored as single words in most candidates' notes, not as chunks; Spanish translates literally ('hacer una foto', 'cometer un error'), and the grammar check passes, so the error survives proofreading.
What to do instead
Learn vocabulary in collocation boxes (verb + noun, adjective + noun, preposition + noun) rather than word lists. For each new word, record one natural partner and one typical preposition. Before the exam, drill the high-frequency academic collocations used in opinion essays (play a role, have an impact on, take measures, raise awareness).
Producing the wrong derived form in word-formation items: writing 'success' where 'successful' is needed, 'economical' for 'economic', 'invention' for 'inventive', or forgetting the negative prefix ('un-/in-/im-/dis-') and the spelling changes (-y to -i, doubling consonants, dropping final -e).
Candidates translate the Spanish word rather than analysing the gap's grammatical slot; they also ignore the sentence structure that dictates whether a noun, adjective, adverb or verb is required, and they do not check spelling after adding a suffix.
What to do instead
For every gap, first decide the part of speech from the words immediately before and after (article + ___ + noun = adjective; verb + ___ = adverb). Then apply the suffix and check spelling rules explicitly. Keep a table of common families (succeed/success/successful/successfully, economy/economic/economical, invent/invention/inventive/inventor).
Shifting tense inconsistently inside a composition or narrative: starting in past simple, sliding into present perfect or present, and mixing past simple with past continuous without a background/action contrast.
Candidates compose sentence by sentence and lose the global timeline; Spanish narrative habits and the influence of spoken narration make the shift feel natural, and there is no time to reread for coherence.
What to do instead
Before writing, decide the anchor tense and write it at the top of your plan (e.g. 'narrative = past simple; background = past continuous; before-past = past perfect'). After drafting, reread only the verbs in sequence and mark any unjustified change. Practise five-sentence mini-narratives with a required tense pattern.
Omitting the subject or misforming questions and negatives in English because Spanish allows subject-drop and does not use auxiliaries: writing 'Is very important to study' or 'What you think about this?' instead of 'It is very important...' and 'What do you think about this?'.
Spanish is a pro-drop language and forms questions by intonation, so the English dummy subject 'it/there' and the do/does/did auxiliary are invisible in translation; the candidate checks meaning, not structure.
What to do instead
Learn the fixed frames: 'It is + adjective + to infinitive', 'There is/are', and the question pattern Aux + Subject + Verb. Do transformation drills from statement to question and from Spanish to English, and proofread your composition specifically for sentences beginning with a verb or a question word without an auxiliary.
Failing sentence-transformation items by changing the meaning or leaving the sentence grammatically incomplete: not keeping the given opening, forgetting the required word, using 'despite' with a clause, or producing a double comparative or double negative.
Candidates focus on the target structure (passive, reported speech, conditional, relative clause) and forget the mechanical constraints of the task (fixed stem, word limit, no change of meaning); they also apply the structure without checking what follows it.
What to do instead
Treat each transformation as a checklist: copy the given stem exactly, insert the required word, keep the same tense and meaning, and check what follows the linker (despite + noun/-ing, although + clause; so + adjective + that; such + (a) + adjective + noun + that). Do ten transformations a day and mark which constraint you broke.
Writing an opinion essay with no clear position or with a position that appears only in the last line, plus a list of ideas instead of developed paragraphs with linkers.
Candidates plan content (ideas) but not argument (stance and order); under time pressure they write what comes to mind, and Spanish rhetorical style tolerates a delayed conclusion more than the English exam task does.
What to do instead
Use a four-paragraph template: introduction stating your position in the last sentence, two body paragraphs each with one idea + explanation + example, conclusion restating the position. Write the thesis sentence first and check every body paragraph supports it. Memorise a small set of linkers (however, moreover, whereas, as a result, in conclusion) and use each only once.
Losing marks on register and range in the composition: repeating the same basic verbs and adjectives (good, bad, very, thing, get), using contractions and colloquialisms in a formal opinion text, and exceeding or falling well below the required word count.
Candidates write the safest words to avoid errors, and they do not count words or check register because they run out of time; the marking criteria reward range and appropriateness, so error-free but flat writing scores low.
What to do instead
Prepare a personal upgrade list of ten replacements (important/crucial, problem/drawback, people/individuals, get/obtain, very/highly) and a ban list (thing, stuff, a lot of in formal writing, contractions). Count words during planning by allocating roughly 40 words per paragraph, and leave three minutes to check register, linkers and length.