Sentence Reordering and Transformation
What this section tests
Sentence reordering and transformation test whether you can build English word order and rewrite a sentence without changing its meaning. Nagasaki's paper uses these items to check articles, auxiliaries, relative pronouns, infinitives and comparative patterns-areas where Japanese word order can interfere.
Core rules
- Build from the verb outward: subject + verb + object, then add time, place and modifiers.
- In questions, put the auxiliary before the subject; in indirect questions, keep statement order: 'Do you know where he lives?'
- For relative clauses, place the clause immediately after the noun it describes: 'the book that my father bought'.
- In transformations, keep the same tense and the same degree of meaning; 'too ... to' becomes 'not ... enough to'.
- Check every small word: a, an, the, to, that, and the final -s.
Worked example
Reorder: this is / my father / bought / the camera / that / yesterday. Reasoning: the main frame is 'This is the camera'; the relative clause 'that my father bought yesterday' must follow 'camera'. Answer: 'This is the camera that my father bought yesterday.'
Transformation: 'He is too young to drive a car.' → 'He is not old enough to drive a car.' Reasoning: 'too young' means below the required age; 'not old enough' preserves that meaning.
Traps
Using Japanese order; omitting 'that' when it is the subject; leaving out an auxiliary in questions; and writing 'because ... so ...' in one sentence.