Tamil Nadu SSLC English cheat sheet

Main idea = the single sentence that covers the whole passage; details only support it, so a detail-only option is always wrong.

Tone words for prose passages: factual, ironic, nostalgic, critical, sympathetic, humorous; match the adjective to the writer's attitude, not the topic.

Inference questions use 'suggests', 'implies', 'most likely'; the answer must be supportable from the text, never from outside knowledge.

Scan for reference words (this, they, such, it) and resolve each to the nearest preceding noun phrase that fits grammatically.

Sequence questions: locate time markers (first, later, meanwhile, eventually) and order events by them, not by paragraph order.

Vocabulary-in-context: substitute each option into the sentence and keep only the one that preserves the passage's meaning and register.

True/False and 'not stated' items: an option that is factually true but absent from the passage is still wrong.

Author's purpose is usually one of: to inform, to persuade, to narrate, to describe, to entertain; check whether the passage argues or reports.

Poetry comprehension answers must be defensible from the words on the page; a plausible feeling not signalled by diction or imagery is a trap.

Identify the speaker separately from the poet; a dramatic monologue or a poem in another's voice is not autobiography.

Sound devices: alliteration = repeated initial consonants; assonance = repeated vowel sounds; onomatopoeia = word imitating sound.

Rhyme scheme is labelled with letters per line (abab, aabb, abba); a line ending in the same sound as another shares its letter.

Stanza forms: couplet = 2 lines; tercet = 3; quatrain = 4; sestet = 6; octave/octet = 8.

Figures: simile uses like/as; metaphor states one thing is another; personification gives human qualities to non-human things; hyperbole is deliberate exaggeration.

Imagery questions ask which sense is appealed to (sight, sound, touch, taste, smell), so name the sense, not the emotion.

Mood is the feeling created in the reader; tone is the speaker's attitude; keep the two distinct in answers.

Synonyms: choose the option closest in meaning in the given sentence, since a synonym of the word in isolation may not fit.

Antonyms: watch for negative prefixes (un-, in-, im-, il-, ir-, dis-, non-) that reverse meaning; 'inflammable' means flammable, not non-flammable.

Homophones to distinguish: their/there/they're, its/it's, principal/principle, stationary/stationery, compliment/complement, advice/advise.

Prefix meanings: pre- before, post- after, sub- under, super- above, anti- against, mis- wrongly, re- again, co-/con- together.

Suffixes signal word class: -tion/-ment/-ness/-ity make nouns; -ous/-ful/-ive/-able make adjectives; -ly usually makes adverbs; -ise/-ize make verbs.

Phrasal verbs: 'give up' = quit, 'give in' = surrender, 'put off' = postpone, 'put up with' = tolerate, 'call off' = cancel, 'look into' = investigate.

Idioms: 'a bolt from the blue' = sudden shock; 'once in a blue moon' = very rarely; 'to let the cat out of the bag' = reveal a secret; 'a blessing in disguise' = apparent misfortune that proves good.

One-word substitution: 'one who studies stars' = astronomer; 'fear of water' = hydrophobia; 'a place where books are kept' = library; 'government by the people' = democracy.

Subject-verb agreement: each, every, either, neither, everyone, nobody take a singular verb; 'neither...nor' agrees with the nearer subject.

Collective nouns (team, jury, committee) take a singular verb when acting as one unit, plural when members act individually.

Tenses: after 'since' or 'for' with a present result, use present perfect ('He has lived here since 2010'); past perfect marks the earlier of two past actions.

Reported speech: shift tense back one step; change pronouns to the reporter's viewpoint; 'today' becomes 'that day', 'tomorrow' becomes 'the next day'.

Conditionals: Type 1 if + present, will + base; Type 2 if + past, would + base; Type 3 if + past perfect, would have + past participle.

Voice: passive = form of be + past participle; only transitive verbs passivise; keep the tense of the active in the passive.

Relative clauses: use 'who' for people, 'which' for things, 'whose' for possession, 'where' for places; non-defining clauses take commas.

Articles: 'a/an' before singular countable nouns on first mention, 'the' for something already specified or unique; no article before uncountable nouns used generally.

Formal letter layout: sender's address, date, receiver's address, salutation (Dear Sir/Madam), subject line, body in 3 paragraphs, subscription (Yours faithfully / Yours sincerely), signature.

'Yours faithfully' pairs with 'Dear Sir/Madam'; 'Yours sincerely' pairs with a named recipient such as 'Dear Mr Ravi'.

Notice format: the word NOTICE at the top, name of the issuing institution, date, a bold heading, body of 4-5 lines, and the writer's name and designation at the bottom left.

Notice body answers what, when, where, who, and whom to contact, and is written impersonally in the third person without 'I'.

Paragraph structure: topic sentence, two to four supporting sentences with examples or reasons, and a concluding sentence; one idea per paragraph.

Cohesive devices for paragraphs: however, therefore, moreover, in addition, on the other hand, as a result, finally.

Short composition (essay) plan: introduction stating the stand, body paragraphs each with one argument plus example, conclusion restating the stand without new points.

Word-limit discipline: an essay of 100-120 words is roughly 10-12 sentences; exceeding the limit by more than about 10 per cent loses marks.

Attribute author to text correctly: 'The Last Leaf' - O. Henry; 'The Cop and the Anthem' - O. Henry; 'A Tiger in the Zoo' - Leslie Norris; 'The Ballad of the Tempest' - James T. Fields.

'The Last Leaf' turns on Johnsy counting ivy leaves and Behrman's painted leaf, which saves her life at the cost of his own; the leaf is a symbol of hope.

'A Tiger in the Zoo' contrasts the caged tiger's restrained fury with its natural freedom, moving between the zoo stanzas and imagined jungle stanzas.

Supplementary Reader questions are answered in complete sentences naming characters and events, not by retelling the whole plot.

Poem theme statements should name both the subject and the attitude: for example, the tiger poem is about captivity versus freedom, not merely about tigers.

Character questions need evidence: state the trait, then cite one action or line from the text that shows it.

Drama and prose extracts: quote a short phrase in quotation marks to support a point rather than paraphrasing vaguely.

Titles are italicised or underlined when mentioned in running prose; poem titles in quotation marks is also accepted in school answers.

Dictionary entries give headword, pronunciation, part of speech, numbered senses, and example phrases; the sense number must match the context.

Alphabetical order ignores spaces and hyphens; compare letter by letter, so 'new moon' files before 'newspaper' (m before s).

Guide words at the top of a dictionary page are the first and last entries on that page; a word between them alphabetically belongs on the page.

Abbreviations in entries: n. noun, v. verb, adj. adjective, adv. adverb, pl. plural, esp. especially, fig. figurative, colloq. colloquial, der. derived from.

Stress marks: a raised vertical stroke before a syllable marks primary stress, a lowered one marks secondary stress.

Information transfer: read the table or chart header first, then match each row's label to the question; do not add information not present in the source.

Bar graph reading: value comes from the axis scale, so check the unit (hundreds, thousands) before stating a number.

Note-making: use headings, sub-headings, and abbreviations, and keep the same grammatical form (all nouns or all verb phrases) across parallel points.

Main idea = the single sentence that covers the whole passage; details only support it, so a detail-only option is always wrong.

Tone words for prose passages: factual, ironic, nostalgic, critical, sympathetic, humorous; match the adjective to the writer's attitude, not the topic.

Inference questions use 'suggests', 'implies', 'most likely'; the answer must be supportable from the text, never from outside knowledge.

Scan for reference words (this, they, such, it) and resolve each to the nearest preceding noun phrase that fits grammatically.

Sequence questions: locate time markers (first, later, meanwhile, eventually) and order events by them, not by paragraph order.

Vocabulary-in-context: substitute each option into the sentence and keep only the one that preserves the passage's meaning and register.

True/False and 'not stated' items: an option that is factually true but absent from the passage is still wrong.

Author's purpose is usually one of: to inform, to persuade, to narrate, to describe, to entertain; check whether the passage argues or reports.

Poetry comprehension answers must be defensible from the words on the page; a plausible feeling not signalled by diction or imagery is a trap.

Identify the speaker separately from the poet; a dramatic monologue or a poem in another's voice is not autobiography.

Sound devices: alliteration = repeated initial consonants; assonance = repeated vowel sounds; onomatopoeia = word imitating sound.

Rhyme scheme is labelled with letters per line (abab, aabb, abba); a line ending in the same sound as another shares its letter.

Stanza forms: couplet = 2 lines; tercet = 3; quatrain = 4; sestet = 6; octave/octet = 8.

Figures: simile uses like/as; metaphor states one thing is another; personification gives human qualities to non-human things; hyperbole is deliberate exaggeration.

Imagery questions ask which sense is appealed to (sight, sound, touch, taste, smell), so name the sense, not the emotion.

Mood is the feeling created in the reader; tone is the speaker's attitude; keep the two distinct in answers.

Synonyms: choose the option closest in meaning in the given sentence, since a synonym of the word in isolation may not fit.

Antonyms: watch for negative prefixes (un-, in-, im-, il-, ir-, dis-, non-) that reverse meaning; 'inflammable' means flammable, not non-flammable.

Homophones to distinguish: their/there/they're, its/it's, principal/principle, stationary/stationery, compliment/complement, advice/advise.

Prefix meanings: pre- before, post- after, sub- under, super- above, anti- against, mis- wrongly, re- again, co-/con- together.

Suffixes signal word class: -tion/-ment/-ness/-ity make nouns; -ous/-ful/-ive/-able make adjectives; -ly usually makes adverbs; -ise/-ize make verbs.

Phrasal verbs: 'give up' = quit, 'give in' = surrender, 'put off' = postpone, 'put up with' = tolerate, 'call off' = cancel, 'look into' = investigate.

Idioms: 'a bolt from the blue' = sudden shock; 'once in a blue moon' = very rarely; 'to let the cat out of the bag' = reveal a secret; 'a blessing in disguise' = apparent misfortune that proves good.

One-word substitution: 'one who studies stars' = astronomer; 'fear of water' = hydrophobia; 'a place where books are kept' = library; 'government by the people' = democracy.

Subject-verb agreement: each, every, either, neither, everyone, nobody take a singular verb; 'neither...nor' agrees with the nearer subject.

Collective nouns (team, jury, committee) take a singular verb when acting as one unit, plural when members act individually.

Tenses: after 'since' or 'for' with a present result, use present perfect ('He has lived here since 2010'); past perfect marks the earlier of two past actions.

Reported speech: shift tense back one step; change pronouns to the reporter's viewpoint; 'today' becomes 'that day', 'tomorrow' becomes 'the next day'.

Conditionals: Type 1 if + present, will + base; Type 2 if + past, would + base; Type 3 if + past perfect, would have + past participle.

Voice: passive = form of be + past participle; only transitive verbs passivise; keep the tense of the active in the passive.

Relative clauses: use 'who' for people, 'which' for things, 'whose' for possession, 'where' for places; non-defining clauses take commas.

Articles: 'a/an' before singular countable nouns on first mention, 'the' for something already specified or unique; no article before uncountable nouns used generally.

Formal letter layout: sender's address, date, receiver's address, salutation (Dear Sir/Madam), subject line, body in 3 paragraphs, subscription (Yours faithfully / Yours sincerely), signature.

'Yours faithfully' pairs with 'Dear Sir/Madam'; 'Yours sincerely' pairs with a named recipient such as 'Dear Mr Ravi'.

Notice format: the word NOTICE at the top, name of the issuing institution, date, a bold heading, body of 4-5 lines, and the writer's name and designation at the bottom left.

Notice body answers what, when, where, who, and whom to contact, and is written impersonally in the third person without 'I'.

Paragraph structure: topic sentence, two to four supporting sentences with examples or reasons, and a concluding sentence; one idea per paragraph.

Cohesive devices for paragraphs: however, therefore, moreover, in addition, on the other hand, as a result, finally.

Short composition (essay) plan: introduction stating the stand, body paragraphs each with one argument plus example, conclusion restating the stand without new points.

Word-limit discipline: an essay of 100-120 words is roughly 10-12 sentences; exceeding the limit by more than about 10 per cent loses marks.

Attribute author to text correctly: 'The Last Leaf' - O. Henry; 'The Cop and the Anthem' - O. Henry; 'A Tiger in the Zoo' - Leslie Norris; 'The Ballad of the Tempest' - James T. Fields.

'The Last Leaf' turns on Johnsy counting ivy leaves and Behrman's painted leaf, which saves her life at the cost of his own; the leaf is a symbol of hope.

'A Tiger in the Zoo' contrasts the caged tiger's restrained fury with its natural freedom, moving between the zoo stanzas and imagined jungle stanzas.

Supplementary Reader questions are answered in complete sentences naming characters and events, not by retelling the whole plot.

Poem theme statements should name both the subject and the attitude: for example, the tiger poem is about captivity versus freedom, not merely about tigers.

Character questions need evidence: state the trait, then cite one action or line from the text that shows it.

Drama and prose extracts: quote a short phrase in quotation marks to support a point rather than paraphrasing vaguely.

Titles are italicised or underlined when mentioned in running prose; poem titles in quotation marks is also accepted in school answers.

Dictionary entries give headword, pronunciation, part of speech, numbered senses, and example phrases; the sense number must match the context.

Alphabetical order ignores spaces and hyphens; compare letter by letter, so 'new moon' files before 'newspaper' (m before s).

Guide words at the top of a dictionary page are the first and last entries on that page; a word between them alphabetically belongs on the page.

Abbreviations in entries: n. noun, v. verb, adj. adjective, adv. adverb, pl. plural, esp. especially, fig. figurative, colloq. colloquial, der. derived from.

Stress marks: a raised vertical stroke before a syllable marks primary stress, a lowered one marks secondary stress.

Information transfer: read the table or chart header first, then match each row's label to the question; do not add information not present in the source.

Bar graph reading: value comes from the axis scale, so check the unit (hundreds, thousands) before stating a number.

Note-making: use headings, sub-headings, and abbreviations, and keep the same grammatical form (all nouns or all verb phrases) across parallel points.