Grammar and vocabulary in context: choosing and ordering forms
What is tested
This section covers word choice in sentences, word-form changes, word ordering, and rewriting a sentence with the same meaning. The weight falls on tense, passive voice, comparatives, infinitives and participles, and the relative pronouns who / which / that.
Core rules
- For ordering tasks, find the subject and main verb first, then attach modifiers. Adverbs of frequency sit before a general verb and after be; a preposition sits directly before its object.
- Tense: in a time or condition clause, use the present form even for future meaning (When he comes, we will start). Keep tenses consistent across a sentence, and pair since with the present perfect.
- Passive: be plus past participle, with by only when the doer matters.
- Comparison: memorise the irregulars (good-better-best, many-more-most); use as ~ as for equality and the -est in/of for the top of a group.
- Word form: noun to adjective (danger - dangerous), verb to noun (invent - invention).
- Relative pronouns: check whether the clause is missing its subject or its object, and whether the antecedent is a person or a thing.
Worked example
The book ( ) I borrowed from Mika was very interesting. Choices: who / which / whose / whom. Reasoning: the antecedent is the book, a thing, so which (or that) is required; who and whom are for people. The clause I borrowed ___ from Mika is missing its object, so the objective case which is correct. Whose would need a following noun. Answer: which.
Traps that cost marks
- Dropping the third-person singular -s or the plural -s under time pressure.
- Forgetting the preposition in listen to, wait for, look for.
- Choosing because where the logic needs so, or the reverse.
- Rewriting tasks that change the meaning by missing a negative or a tense.