Sentence Reordering and Structural Manipulation (語句整序)
What this domain tests
Reordering items give scrambled words or phrases and ask you to build a grammatical sentence. Structural-manipulation items may ask for a rewritten sentence with the same meaning, or for the correct position of a word. The Japanese term is 語句整序. The test checks sentence structure, collocation, and word order rather than translation.
Core rules and concepts
- Find the subject and the main verb first. Japanese order is not English order.
- Build known chunks: 'tell me a story,' 'give it to him,' 'too ... to ...,' 'enough to ...,' 'as ... as ...,' 'so ... that ....'
- Put adverbs of frequency before the main verb but after be: 'often tells,' 'is often late.'
- In indirect questions, use statement order: 'Do you know where he lives?' not 'where does he live.'
- For rewriting, keep the original meaning and change only the structure the prompt requires.
Worked example
Reorder: me / the / tells / teacher / story / a / my / often
Reasoning: The subject is 'my teacher.' The verb is 'tells,' which takes two objects: 'me' (person) and 'a story' (thing). The frequency adverb 'often' goes before the main verb. This gives: 'My teacher often tells me a story.' Putting 'often' at the end or placing 'a story' before 'me' produces unnatural or ungrammatical order.
Traps that cost marks
- Following Japanese word order and placing the verb last.
- Separating a verb from its particle or object: 'look after the dog,' not 'look the dog after.'
- Misplacing 'enough': 'old enough to drive,' not 'enough old.'
- In indirect questions, keeping 'do/does/did' and question order.
Exam habit
Write the subject and verb in the margin before you arrange the rest. Then read the finished sentence aloud in your head to check natural order.