General English and Comprehension
What is tested
General English and Comprehension checks grammar, usage, vocabulary and reading. Typical items are error spotting, sentence improvement, single and cloze fill-in-the-blanks, synonyms and antonyms, idioms and phrases, one-word substitution, spelling, active–passive, direct–indirect speech, and a comprehension passage with inference questions.
Rules that decide most items
- Subject–verb agreement: the verb agrees with the grammatical subject, not the nearest noun.
- With 'neither/either … nor/or', the verb agrees with the nearer subject.
- Articles: 'a' before consonant sounds, 'an' before vowel sounds (an hour, a university).
- Tenses: present perfect for a past action with present relevance; past perfect for the earlier of two past actions.
- Prepositions: learn fixed collocations such as comprise, consist of, prefer to and superior to.
Worked example
Choose the correct verb: 'Neither of the boys ___ submitted the assignment.' 'Neither' is singular, so the answer is 'has'. The plural noun 'boys' is the object of 'of', not the subject. 'Have' would be correct in 'Neither the boys nor the girls have submitted …', where the nearer subject is plural.
Traps
- Proximity agreement in 'one of the + plural noun + who/that': 'one of the boys who were'.
- Choosing an antonym that is only partially opposite.
- In comprehension, selecting an option that is true in general but not stated in the passage.
- Confusing affect/effect, principal/principle and complement/compliment.