Foreign Language: Reading, Grammar, and Vocabulary
The foreign language block (ағылшын тілі, неміс тілі, француз тілі, etc.) assesses reading comprehension, grammar, and vocabulary at approximately CEFR B1. It is a written test: no listening or speaking. Items ask you to find main ideas, scan for details, infer meaning from context, and choose grammatically correct forms.
Core rules and concepts
- Reading: skim for gist (title, first sentence, topic sentences), scan for names/numbers/dates, infer vocabulary from word formation and context.
- Tense sequence: use past perfect (had + V3) for an action completed before another past action; past simple for the later action.
- Conditionals: zero (if + present, present), first (if + present, will), second (if + past, would), third (if + had + V3, would have + V3).
- Passive voice: be + V3; keep the tense of the active sentence.
- Vocabulary: learn collocations (make a decision, take responsibility) and false friends (actual = real, not current).
Worked example
"By the time the committee arrived, the report ___." Options: has been finished / had been finished / was finished / is finished. The finishing happened before the arrival, so the earlier past action needs past perfect; the report receives the action, so passive: had been finished. "Was finished" would wrongly suggest the finishing happened at the same time as the arrival.
Traps that cost marks
- Choosing past simple when past perfect is required by "by the time", "before", "already".
- Confusing since (point in time) with for (duration).
- Translating false friends literally (e.g., "actual problems" ≠ current problems).
- Ignoring subject-verb agreement in long noun phrases.