English Language
English Language tests standard competitive-exam grammar and usage: error spotting, sentence improvement, fill in the blanks, synonyms and antonyms, idioms, one-word substitutions, sentence ordering and a short comprehension passage.
Grammar anchors
- Subject-verb agreement: 'one of + plural noun' takes a singular verb, as in 'One of the boys is absent'.
- Articles: 'a' before a consonant sound, 'an' before a vowel sound, so 'an hour' but 'a university'.
- Fixed prepositions: depend on, comply with, capable of, prefer to, married to.
- Tense consistency and backshift in reported speech.
- Active/passive conversion and correct degrees of comparison.
Worked example
'One of my friend are coming today.' Two errors: after 'one of', the noun must be plural, and the verb agrees with 'one', so it is 'is'. Correct: 'One of my friends is coming today.' The same logic governs 'Each of the students has...' and 'Neither of the answers is...'.
Traps
'The news are' is wrong because news is an uncountable singular noun. Use 'less' for uncountable nouns and 'fewer' for countable ones. In comprehension, answer strictly from the passage, not from general knowledge. Learn idioms as whole units: 'to bite the bullet' means to endure a difficult situation, not to eat.
Key points
- 'One of + plural noun + singular verb' is the standard pattern.
- Use 'an' before vowel sounds, not vowel letters.
- Fewer is for countable nouns; less is for uncountable nouns.
- News, mathematics and physics take singular verbs.
- Comprehension answers must be supported by the passage.