Grammar and Vocabulary (Gramática y vocabulario)
Grammar and vocabulary items are discrete and fast: gap-fill, verb tables, matching, word families, and choosing between confusable pairs. The HSC syllabus works up to roughly CEFR A2–B1, so the marks sit in a small set of structures that recur every year.
The verb system
- Presente for routines and general truths.
- Pretérito indefinido for finished events; imperfecto for description, habits and background.
- Futuro or ir a + infinitive for plans; condicional for polite requests and hypotheses.
- Presente de subjuntivo after wish, doubt and emotion: «Quiero que vengas», «Es posible que llueva».
- Imperativo: affirmative attaches pronouns (dímelo), negative does not and has irregular stems (no vayas, no digas, no des).
- Perfecto for recent past within an open time frame: «Hoy he estudiado mucho».
Confusable pairs that are always examined
ser/estar/hay: «Mi casa es grande» (inherent), «La sopa está fría» (state), «Hay tres sillas» (existence). por/para: cause, exchange, duration versus purpose, recipient, deadline. gustar-type verbs agree with the thing liked: «Me gustan las películas». Personal a before people: «Veo a mi hermano».
Worked example
«Cuando ____ (ser) niño, ____ (vivir) en Nashik y un día ____ (ver) un tigre.» Answer: era, vivía, vi. Reasoning: «cuando era niño» frames background, so imperfecto covers both the age and the habitual living; «un día» marks one completed event, so the preterite is required. Writing «viví» or «veía» destroys the aspect contrast the examiner is testing.
Vocabulary
Learn in thematic fields with gender and a partner verb: la cocina/cocinar, el viaje/viajar. Watch false friends: embarazada (pregnant, not embarrassed), largo (long), actual (current), realizar (to carry out), asistir (to attend).
Traps
Missing stem changes in the preterite (tener → tuve); accents that distinguish forms (hablé vs hable); gustar agreement; irregular negative imperatives; adjectives that fail to agree with the noun.