English Language
English Language
The English section checks grammar, vocabulary, comprehension, error detection, sentence improvement, fill-in-the-blanks, idioms, and spellings. Questions are usually standard school-level grammar, so rule-based preparation works better than memorising random words.
Core rules and concepts
- Subject-verb agreement: "one of + plural noun" takes a singular verb; with "either...or" or "neither...nor", the verb agrees with the nearer subject.
- Articles: "a" or "an" depends on the initial sound, not the letter - an hour, a university.
- Tenses: use present perfect for past actions with present relevance; past simple for finished actions with a definite past time.
- Prepositions: learn fixed pairs - abide by, capable of, insist on, prefer to.
- Voice and narration: change the object to subject in passive; shift tense back in indirect speech.
- Vocabulary: synonyms, antonyms and idioms are best learnt in context.
Worked example
"One of the boys ___ absent today." The subject is "one", which is singular, so the verb is "is". The phrase "of the boys" does not change the number of the subject. Answer: is.
Traps
Do not use "less" with countable nouns - use "fewer". Do not write double negatives. In error spotting, check the verb first, then prepositions, then articles; most errors sit in these three places. Watch "affect/effect" and "since/for" in fill-in-the-blanks.