Kuwait University Arabic Aptitude Test cheat sheet

Case system (iʿrāb): nominative (rafʿ) marks the subject (fāʿil) and predicate (khabar); accusative (naṣb) marks the direct object (mafʿūl bihi), khabar of kāna, ism of inna, and ḥāl; genitive (jarr) follows prepositions and serves as the second term of iḍāfa.

Diptotes (mamnūʿ min al-ṣarf) take no tanwīn and use fatha in the genitive: patterns like mafāʿil, afʿal, and proper names on faʿlān or ending in -ān/-ūn.

Sound masculine plurals: nominative -ūna, accusative/genitive -īna; sound feminine plurals take -āt with kasra before it in the genitive.

Broken plural patterns (jamʿ taksīr) are lexical: fuʿūl, fiʿāl, afʿāl, fuʿalāʾ, mafāʿil - agreement in adjectives follows the singular's gender, not the plural form.

Verb morphology: Form I faʿala; Form II faʿʿala (intensive/causative); Form III fāʿala (reciprocal); Form IV afʿala (transitive causative); Form V tafaʿʿala; Form VI tafāʿala; Form VII infaʿala; Form VIII iftaʿala; Form IX ifʿalla (colors/defects); Form X istafʿala (request/esteem).

Weak verbs: hollow (ajwaf) and defective (nāqiṣ) forms change in the past/jussive; the imperative of Form I drops the initial vowel (qul, biʿ) while Forms II–X use a prothetic hamza (biʿ, istabriq → istaʿidd).

Rhetoric (ʿilm al-balāgha): tashbīh (simile), istiʿāra (metaphor), kināya (metonymy), and maṭlaʿ/iltifāt are the standard figures tested in comprehension items.

Orthography rules: hamzat al-waṣl is dropped in connected speech (al-); the tāʾ marbūṭa becomes hāʾ in pause; alif maqṣūra (ā) is written ى in final position; the maddah (آ) marks hamza + long ā.

Subject-verb agreement: indefinite pronouns (everyone, each, neither) take singular verbs; collective nouns (team, committee) take singular verbs in American usage unless the members act individually.

Tense sequence: after a past-tense main verb, past perfect (had + past participle) marks an event completed before another past event; present perfect marks a state continuing to now.

Conditionals: first (if + present, will + base); second (if + past, would + base); third (if + past perfect, would have + past participle).

Modals: must = obligation; should = recommendation; could/might = possibility; mustn't = prohibition while don't have to = no obligation.

Prepositions of time: in for months/years/seasons, on for days/dates, at for clock times; in/on/at also mark place with the same logic.

Reading inference: a valid inference must be supported by the passage; a conclusion that adds outside facts or reverses the author's claim is a distractor.

Vocabulary in context: the tested meaning is the one that fits the sentence's register; false friends and near-synonyms (affect/effect, imply/infer, principal/principle) are common traps.

Punctuation: the Oxford comma separates the final item in a list; a semicolon joins two independent clauses; a colon introduces an explanation or list.