English Language: Grammar and Reading
English Language in the Health Field exam checks reading comprehension, grammar in context, vocabulary, and short writing. Questions often use health-related passages, so practise extracting the main idea, reference words, and inference rather than translating every word.
Core rules
- Tenses: present perfect for past actions with present relevance; past simple for finished past time; future with will for predictions and going to for plans.
- Passive: be + past participle; keep the tense of the active verb. The patient was examined by the doctor.
- Conditionals: zero (if + present, present), first (if + present, will), second (if + past, would + base), third (if + past perfect, would have + past participle).
- Relative clauses: who for people, which for things, where for places; omit the object pronoun in defining clauses.
- Subject-verb agreement: each, every, everyone, and uncountable nouns take singular verbs.
Worked example
“If the nurse had checked the allergy bracelet, she would have avoided the error.” Reasoning: the sentence describes an unreal past situation. The if-clause uses had + past participle (had checked), and the result uses would have + past participle (would have avoided). It is third conditional, not second, because the time is past and the result did not happen.
Traps
- Using “would have” in the if-clause: “If she would have checked” is wrong.
- Using “will” after if in a first conditional: “If it will rain” is wrong.
- Choosing “which” for a person or “who” for a thing.
- Answering reading questions from memory instead of the passage.
- Writing a paragraph without a topic sentence and linking words.
Read the question stem first, underline the reference word, and check whether the item asks for a fact, inference, or vocabulary meaning.