English Language Comprehension and Proficiency
English Language Comprehension and Proficiency tests reading and correctness in one paper: a short unseen passage with inference questions, plus grammar and vocabulary items. The passage rewards careful reading; the grammar items reward knowing the specific rule being tested.
Core rules
- Comprehension: answer only from the passage; identify the main idea, tone (critical, neutral, appreciative) and the contextual meaning of a word; eliminate options that are true in general but absent from the text.
- Agreement: 'one of + plural noun' takes a singular verb; each, every, either, neither and everyone are singular; a collective noun acting as one body takes a singular verb.
- Articles and prepositions: a before consonant sounds, an before vowel sounds (an hour, a university); fixed pairs such as abide by, insist on, capable of, prefer to.
- Tense and voice: use since and for with perfect tenses; change to passive only after locating the object.
- Vocabulary: learn idioms as blocks - to let the cat out of the bag means to reveal a secret - and one-word substitutions such as polyglot for one who speaks many languages.
Worked example
'One of my friend (a) / have gone (b) / to Patna (c) / No error (d).' The subject of the verb is One, not friend, so the noun must be plural (friends) and the verb singular (has gone). The errors sit in (a) and (b); where only one choice is allowed, the verb error in (b) is the decisive one.
Traps
Do not confuse hardly...when with no sooner...than; than never follows scarcely. In para jumbles, find the opening sentence - a pronoun cannot start the paragraph. In cloze items read the whole sentence: a plausible word that breaks agreement still loses the mark.