Grammar, Syntax and Vocabulary in Context
These items test whether you can choose the form that fits a sentence: tense and aspect, passive voice, infinitives and gerunds, relative clauses, comparatives, conjunctions, auxiliaries, prepositions, articles and word choice. The blank is inside a sentence or short exchange, so context and the word before and after the blank decide the answer.
Read the signals first
- Time words set the tense: yesterday and ago take the simple past; since and for take the present perfect; by the time takes the past perfect.
- Find the subject to check agreement and to decide active or passive.
- Verb patterns are fixed: enjoy -ing, want to do, tell someone to do, make someone do, look forward to -ing.
- Adjective plus preposition pairs: good at, interested in, afraid of, proud of.
- Identify the word class the blank needs from its position: after an article comes a noun, after be comes an adjective or a participle.
Worked example
"This bridge ___ 120 years ago." Choices: is built / was built / has been built / built. Reasoning: "ago" marks a finished past event, so present forms are out. The bridge receives the action, so the passive is needed. Past passive is was built. "Has been built" fails because the time is finished, not connected to now.
Traps that cost marks
- Using the passive with intransitive verbs: happen, appear and arrive have no passive.
- "Since" with the simple past instead of the present perfect.
- Confusable pairs: borrow/lend, bring/take, few/little, some/any.
- Choosing by sound rather than by the grammar of the slot.