Grammar and Vocabulary in Context: Tense, Sentence Patterns, Prepositions, Word Order, and Paraphrase
This domain tests grammar and vocabulary inside short contexts. The main fields are tense, sentence patterns, prepositions, word order, and paraphrase. The safest method is to identify the time marker or fixed pattern first, then eliminate options that break it.
Tense and agreement
- Use time markers: since + point in time, for + period, by the time + past event often takes past perfect.
- Match the verb to its subject. Watch one of the + plural noun + singular verb.
- After look forward to, be used to, and enjoy, use an -ing form.
Word order and paraphrase
- Embedded questions use statement order: Do you know where he lives? not where does he live.
- Paraphrase keeps meaning and changes form: This book is easier than that one = That book is more difficult than this one. I borrowed it from him = He lent it to me.
Worked example: He has lived in Kobe ___ 2015. Options: for / since / in / from. Reasoning: 2015 is a starting point; the present perfect with a point in time takes since. For needs a duration, such as for ten years. In does not combine naturally with has lived here to mark the start. Answer: since.
Traps:
- since with a duration: since three years is wrong.
- A double auxiliary in an embedded question: where does she live after Do you know.
- Borrow/lend direction: you borrow from someone; they lend to you.
- Fixed adjective-preposition pairs: good at, afraid of, interested in.
- Word-order distractors that sound natural but break the pattern.
Core rules
- Find the time expression before choosing a tense.
- Learn sentence frames as whole units: too ... to, so ... that, not as ... as.
- Check subject-verb agreement after long subjects.
- In paraphrase, keep the same meaning and change only the form.