Grammar and Usage
Grammar and Usage tests control, not just recognition: you must choose the tense, voice, or structure that the sentence's meaning requires.
Tense and aspect
Simple present for habits and general truths; present continuous for temporary actions; present perfect for past actions with present relevance (has stopped); past perfect for the earlier of two past events. Keep sequence of tenses consistent in reported and conditional sentences.
Active and passive
Passive = correct form of be + past participle, keeping the original tense: They have cancelled the match → The match has been cancelled. Only transitive verbs take a passive. Make the new subject agree with the verb.
Reported speech
Backshift one step when the reporting verb is past: will→would, can→could, present perfect→past perfect. Change pronouns to the reporter's viewpoint and shift time and place words (tomorrow→the next day, here→there). Report questions in statement order with no question mark; report imperatives with told/asked + object + to + infinitive.
Sentence structure
Check that every clause has a finite verb, that modifiers sit next to what they modify, and that coordination joins parallel forms.
Worked example
Direct: I will finish the report tomorrow, she said. Reported: She said that she would finish the report the next day. Reasoning: the reporting verb is past, so will becomes would; I shifts to she; tomorrow shifts to the next day; that is optional; quotation marks and the comma disappear.
Traps that cost marks
- said to becomes told, not said.
- Universal truths do not backshift.
- Reported questions keep statement order: asked where he was, not where was he.
- Intransitive verbs such as happen and arrive have no passive.
- Dangling modifiers and faulty parallelism.