Grammar and Usage: Concord, Tense, Voice and Reported Speech
Grammar is rarely tested as isolated labelling. It appears as editing, gap-filling, sentence completion and transformation, so the useful skill is choosing the form the surrounding sentence demands rather than reciting definitions.
Concord
- 'One of + plural noun + singular verb': One of my friends is coming.
- 'The number of' takes a singular verb; 'a number of' takes a plural verb.
- With 'neither...nor' and 'either...or', the verb agrees with the nearer subject.
- 'Along with', 'as well as' and 'together with' do not change the subject: The teacher, along with the students, was present.
Tense and conditionals
- Present perfect for a past action with present relevance; 'since' and 'for' belong with perfect forms.
- Past perfect for the earlier of two past actions and in the frames 'Hardly had... when' and 'No sooner had... than'.
- Conditionals: If + present, will (open); If + past, would (unreal present); If + had + past participle, would have + past participle (unfulfilled past).
Voice and reported speech
- Passive = correct form of 'be' + past participle, with the original tense preserved.
- Backshift one step, change pronouns and time words (now → then, tomorrow → the next day); questions become 'if/whether' with statement word order; imperatives become 'to + verb'.
Worked example
'Hardly had the bell rung when the students ______ (rush) out.' Reasoning: 'Hardly... when' is a fixed correlative frame. The first clause already carries the past perfect with inversion ('had the bell rung'), so the second clause takes the simple past. Answer: rushed. Second example: 'One of my friend is coming today.' The frame 'one of' requires a plural noun, so 'friend' becomes 'friends'.
Traps that cost marks
- Writing 'Hardly... than' or 'No sooner... when'.
- 'If I would have known' instead of 'If I had known'.
- Forgetting to backshift in reported speech, or backshifting a universal truth.
- 'The number of students are' - singular verb needed.