Sentence Reordering and Structural Completion
Two task types sit here. Word reordering gives you a scrambled set of words, sometimes with one word you must not use, and asks for a correct sentence. Structural completion asks you to rewrite a sentence so it keeps the same meaning, or to finish a sentence that has been started for you. Both reward the same skill: recognising the grammatical frame before you place individual words.
Rules that hold
- Find the verb pattern first. A sentence built on 'tell someone to do' or 'ask someone how to do' fixes most of the order for you.
- Build from the two ends: subject plus predicate at the start, then fit the modifiers in.
- In indirect questions, keep statement order after the question word: tell me where he lives, not where does he live.
- Adjective before noun, adverb next to the verb it modifies, and time or place expressions at the end.
- If one word is extra, identify the pattern first and the leftover word will reveal itself as the one the pattern cannot use.
- For rewriting, keep the same tense and the same subject, and check that no information has been added or dropped.
Worked example
Words: could / you / me / how / tell / to / this / use. Reasoning: 'Could you' opens a polite request, 'tell me' follows, and after an indirect question word the infinitive pattern 'how to use' is fixed. That uses could, you, tell, me, how, to, use. Only 'this' remains, and it belongs as the object of use. Answer: 'Could you tell me how to use this?' - not 'how do I use this', because the question word is already inside the request.
Traps that cost marks
Putting question inversion after tell me or do you know; splitting a fixed chunk such as tell me how to; forgetting to place the plural or article the noun needs; and, in rewriting items, changing the tense or dropping a word such as already or never, which changes the meaning.