English Language: Comprehension and Grammatical Control
English Language in LIC AAO checks comprehension and control of standard written English under time pressure. The section usually includes reading comprehension, cloze test, error detection, sentence rearrangement, fillers and word usage.
Core rules
- RC: read the passage once for structure, then locate each answer; correct options paraphrase the passage, while wrong options repeat words but distort the claim.
- Para jumbles: find the opening sentence, usually independent and definitional, then link by pronouns, conjunctions and chronology.
- Subject-verb agreement: the verb agrees with the head noun, not the nearest noun. "One of the officers was" is correct; "One of the officers who were present" is correct because "who" refers to officers.
- Prepositions and idioms are fixed: "comply with", "averse to", "capable of", "different from".
- Parallelism: items joined by and/or must share grammatical form.
Worked example
"The manager, along with his team members, ___ attending the meeting." The head subject is "manager" (singular); "along with" is a parenthetical phrase, so the verb is "was", not "were".
Traps
- Choosing an option because it sounds formal, not because it fits the grammar.
- In error detection, spotting a spelling change but missing the actual subject-verb error.
- In cloze, ignoring the sentence's contrast marker, such as "however" or "although".
- Extreme RC options with "always" or "never" are usually wrong.
- In rearrangement, forcing a sentence first because it contains a name.