Grammar and Vocabulary
What grammar and vocabulary tests
Grammar and Vocabulary tests form and meaning: tense and aspect, subject-verb agreement, articles, prepositions, modals, active and passive voice, direct and indirect speech, non-finite verbs, conditionals, phrasal verbs, synonyms and antonyms, one-word substitutions, and idioms.
Core rules
- Tense: look for time markers. 'Since 2015' needs present perfect or present perfect continuous; 'for three years' needs a duration form.
- Agreement: the verb agrees with the nearest subject after 'either...or' and 'neither...nor'.
- Articles: 'a' before consonant sounds, 'an' before vowel sounds, 'the' for something already specified or unique.
- Prepositions: learn verb + preposition pairs, such as 'discuss' without 'about' and 'return' without 'back'.
- Voice: keep the tense and add the correct form of 'be' plus past participle.
- Narration: shift pronouns, tense, and time words when the reporting verb is past.
Worked example
Sentence: 'He has been living in Kanpur ___ 2015.' Reasoning: 2015 is a point in time, not a duration. Use 'since' with a point and 'for' with a length of time. Answer: 'since'. Second example: 'Neither the teacher nor the students ___ present.' The verb agrees with 'students', so the answer is 'were'.
Traps
Literal translation from Hindi, such as 'discuss about' or 'return back'; double negatives; 'if it will rain' instead of 'if it rains'; missing articles before singular countable nouns; confusing 'since' and 'for'.
Key points
- Use time markers to choose tense.
- Apply the proximity rule to either/or and neither/nor.
- Learn preposition collocations.
- Keep tense consistent in passive and reported speech.
- Read the whole sentence before filling a blank.