Grammar and Vocabulary in Context (文法・語彙)
This section tests whether you can choose and shape words inside a real sentence: a blank to fill with the right word or phrase, a bracketed word to change into the correct form, and short conversational exchanges where the natural reply is the answer.
Decide by position, not by feeling
- Before a noun → adjective; after be / look / become / seem → adjective; after the, a, my → noun.
- Two verbs in one clause → check whether you need an auxiliary, a to-infinitive, or an -ing form.
- After a preposition → noun or -ing, never a bare infinitive.
High-value items
- Tense and aspect: for/since with the present perfect; a finished past time with the simple past.
- Passive: be + past participle; first decide whether the subject does or receives the action.
- look forward to / be used to / be good at / instead of + -ing or noun.
- Participles: the boy playing tennis; the window broken by the storm.
- Comparison: as ... as, the -est in, than any other + singular noun.
Worked example
"The song ( ) by a junior high student last year." Choices: wrote / was written / has written / is writing. Reasoning: the subject "the song" cannot write; "by" marks the agent; "last year" is a finished past time, so the present perfect is excluded. Answer: was written.
Traps
- "look forward to" is a preposition, so "to meet" is wrong and "to meeting" is right.
- "have been to" (experience) versus "have gone to" (still away).
- Agreement after "one of the ..." (plural noun) and "each of" (singular verb).
- Japanese meaning that needs a different part of speech in English: success / succeed / successful.