Grammar and Language Use
Grammar and Language Use is tested through gap-filling, cloze, error correction and sentence transformation, so accuracy matters more than length. The recurring ground is tense and aspect, subject–verb agreement, articles, prepositions, voice, reported speech, conditionals, modals, clauses and simple/compound/complex conversion.
Rules that carry the most marks
- Agreement: one of + plural noun + singular verb ("One of the boys is absent"). With neither...nor / either...or, the verb agrees with the nearer subject.
- Tense and aspect: use present perfect for past action still relevant now ("I have lost my hall ticket"), past perfect for the earlier of two past actions.
- Articles: a/an for one of many, the for something already specified or unique in context.
- Voice: only a transitive verb can be passivised, and the object becomes the subject.
- Conditionals: If + present, will (open); If + past, would (unreal); If + had + past participle, would have (unfulfilled past).
Worked example
Direct speech: *The teacher said, "I will collect the records tomorrow." Reasoning: reporting verb in the past, so backshift will → would; first-person I shifts to she to match the speaker; the time marker tomorrow becomes the next day. Result: The teacher said that she would collect the records the next day. Note the exception: universal truths are not backshifted - "He said that the sun rises in the east."
Traps that cost marks
- Backshifting the verb but forgetting to shift pronouns and time/place words.
- Dangling participles: "Walking down the road, the tower was seen" should name the walker.
- Confusing since (point of time) with for (duration).
- Changing meaning during transformation - the rewritten sentence must keep the original sense and tense.