General English: Grammar, Vocabulary, Comprehension and Usage
General English in this exam is a usage paper, not a literature paper. It checks whether you can spot a faulty sentence, choose the right word, understand a short passage and apply standard written English accurately under time pressure. Expect error spotting, sentence improvement, fill-in-the-blanks, synonyms and antonyms, one-word substitutions, idioms and phrases, and a short comprehension passage.
The rules that decide most marks
- Subject-verb agreement. In "one of + plural noun + relative clause", the verb is singular: One of the petitions has been dismissed. With "the number of" use a singular verb; with "a number of" use a plural verb.
- Neither/either/each/every take a singular verb; with "neither...nor", the verb agrees with the nearer subject.
- Fixed prepositions are tested more than any other vocabulary point: depose to, comply with, abstain from, insist on, acquainted with, capable of.
- Tense and reported speech. Keep the sequence of tenses consistent; backshift the reporting verb's tense.
Worked example
"One of the witnesses examined by the prosecution have turned hostile." Reasoning: the subject is "one", not "witnesses". The phrase "of the witnesses examined by the prosecution" is a prepositional modifier and cannot change the number of the verb. "Have" is therefore wrong; the correct verb is has. The examiner's eye should move straight to the verb after "one of".
Traps that cost marks
Matching the verb to the nearest noun instead of the true subject; choosing a synonym that is only loosely related in context; answering comprehension questions from general knowledge instead of the passage; taking idioms literally ("to draw the curtain" means to end something); confusing principal/principle, judicial/judicious, affect/effect.
Read every option back into the sentence before marking it; many distractors are grammatically possible but idiomatically wrong.