Bagrut English common mistakes
Bagrut English · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
Answering a short-answer question by copying a full sentence or two verbatim from the passage instead of stating the point in the candidate's own words.
Under time pressure, copying feels safe and looks like it contains the right content, and candidates do not realise that many items are marked for comprehension shown through rewording, not for locating a sentence.
What to do instead
Before writing, underline the source sentence, then cover it and say the answer aloud in one short sentence of your own. Write that sentence, then check it against the question's key word (why, how, what changed) to confirm you answered the question asked rather than summarising the sentence.
Writing a full paragraph for a question that asks for one or two sentences, or writing a single sentence for a task that requires a developed paragraph with a topic sentence and supporting detail.
Candidates read the content of the prompt but skip the instruction words about length and format, and they assume more text always earns more credit.
What to do instead
Circle the instruction words (in one sentence, in 60-80 words, write a paragraph) before reading the passage. After drafting, count sentences or words and adjust. Practise with a timer so the physical length of a 2-sentence and a 70-word answer becomes automatic.
Choosing a vocabulary-in-context answer based on the most common dictionary meaning of the word rather than the meaning it carries in that sentence.
Frequent words are recognised instantly and the familiar sense arrives first, so the candidate stops processing and never tests the option against the surrounding clause.
What to do instead
Substitute each option back into the sentence and read the whole sentence with it. Eliminate any option that changes the logic or the tone. Train by collecting polysemous words (figure, charge, run, matter, fine) and writing two sentences that force different senses.
Resolving a pronoun or reference word (it, this, they, the former) to the nearest noun instead of to the actual antecedent, which is often a whole idea in the previous sentence.
Readers apply a proximity heuristic, and in English academic prose the antecedent is frequently a nominalised idea several words back or a clause, not the closest noun phrase.
What to do instead
For each reference item, cover the pronoun, read backwards, and ask 'what exactly does this stand for?' Then replace the pronoun with your candidate and check the sentence still makes sense grammatically and logically. Note that singular 'this' often points to a whole preceding clause.
Treating a distractor that repeats exact words from the passage as the correct answer, while rejecting the correct option because it uses a synonym or a paraphrase.
Surface word matching feels like evidence, and less confident readers rely on lexical overlap rather than on meaning. Test writers deliberately build distractors from copied phrases.
What to do instead
Adopt a rule: an option that copies three or more words from the text is suspect until proven. For each option, find the line in the passage that would have to be true for it to be correct, and mark whether the passage actually says that or only something adjacent to it.
Answering an inference or conclusion question with a statement that is true in general knowledge but not supported by the passage, or that is a restatement of a stated fact rather than an inference.
Candidates conflate 'reasonable' with 'supported', and they do not distinguish what the text states from what it implies, so plausible world knowledge slips in.
What to do instead
After choosing, point to the specific words in the text that license the inference and state the unstated link in one sentence ('the text says X; therefore Y'). If you cannot name the link, the option is either stated (too literal) or unsupported (too free).
Misreading the writer's purpose or tone by taking an ironic, cautious, or critical passage at face value, or labelling any argumentative text as 'informative'.
Candidates look for content only and ignore evaluative lexis, hedging, quotation marks used for scepticism, and contrast markers, which are the actual carriers of stance.
What to do instead
Do a stance pass before answering: highlight evaluative adjectives, adverbs, modals (may, could, apparently), scare quotes, and concession-then-reversal structures (although, admittedly, yet). Then choose a tone word that matches the density of those markers, and justify it with two quoted words from the text.
In synthesis tasks, writing about each source separately in two blocks instead of integrating them around a shared point, and ignoring where the sources disagree.
Candidates process texts one at a time and treat the second text as an addition rather than as a position to be compared, so the response becomes two summaries side by side.
What to do instead
Before writing, draw a two-column grid of the sources' claims on the same sub-issues and mark agreement, conflict, and silence. Build each body paragraph around one sub-issue, citing both sources inside it, and devote at least one sentence to explaining the difference rather than only listing it.
Losing marks on written production through cohesion and register errors: no paragraphing, missing or mechanical linking words, and informal register (contractions, slang, second-person address) in a formal task.
Candidates compose in speech-like English and add connectors as decoration at sentence starts, without planning the rhetorical structure the task demands (for example, an opinion essay or a formal letter).
What to do instead
Plan three or four paragraph topics in note form before writing, each with a clear function (claim, reason, counterargument, conclusion). Use a register checklist before submitting: no contractions, no 'you' for the general reader, no slang, full forms of modals. Vary connectors by function rather than repeating 'Moreover'.
Running out of time on the longer text and the writing task because the candidate reads every passage at the same slow speed and answers questions in passage order without triage.
Accessible short texts and harder analytical texts demand different reading speeds, and candidates rarely rehearse the whole paper under timed conditions, so the writing section is compressed or abandoned.
What to do instead
Practise a fixed time budget per section and stick to it, skimming the longer text once for gist and structure before answering. Answer explicit detail questions first, flag inference and vocabulary items to return to, and protect a non-negotiable block for planning and writing the production task.