English Language: Comprehension, Grammar and Sentence Logic
English Language tests reading comprehension, grammar accuracy, sentence ordering, cloze completion and vocabulary in context, often through banking and economy passages. Accuracy on the grammar items funds the slower comprehension work.
Grammar rules that recur
- Subject-verb agreement with either-or and neither-nor follows the nearer subject: neither the manager nor the clerks were present.
- Parallelism after not only but also, and after as well as, requires matching grammatical forms.
- Collective nouns such as team, jury and committee take a singular verb when acting as one unit.
- Prepositions are fixed by idiom: comply with, consist of, capable of, prefer to.
Reading comprehension method
Read the question stem first, then locate the relevant lines. Separate stated fact from inference; the correct inference is supported by the text, not by general knowledge. For tone questions, prefer restrained descriptors such as analytical, critical or cautious over emotional ones.
Para jumbles
Find the opening sentence: it introduces a full noun and carries no dangling pronoun or definite article. Then follow connectors such as however, therefore and moreover, and check chronological order of events.
Worked example
Sentence: Neither the branch manager nor the clerks was available at the counter. The compound subject places clerks nearest the verb, so the verb must be plural: were available. The same proximity rule makes either the records or the ledger is missing correct.
Traps that cost marks
Questions asking which statement is NOT true require elimination of true options, a frequent misread. Extreme adverbs such as always and never usually disqualify an inference option. In cloze items, test the connector as well as the vocabulary.