Grammar and Usage
Grammar and usage in the Myanmar matriculation English paper tests control of forms in connected sentences: tense and aspect, subject–verb agreement, articles, prepositions, conditionals, reported speech, relative clauses, modifiers, and parallelism. Most items are sentence-level edits, so read the whole sentence before choosing.
High-yield rules
- Agreement: the verb agrees with the head noun, not the nearest noun: The list of candidates is long.
- Tense sequence: use past perfect for the earlier of two past actions; use present perfect for past actions with present relevance (since, for, already).
- Conditionals: Type 1 if + present, will; Type 2 if + past, would; Type 3 if + past perfect, would have.
- Reported speech: backshift the tense when the reporting verb is past; adjust pronouns, time, and place words (now → then, here → there).
- Relative clauses: who for people, which for things, whose for possession; omit the relative pronoun only when it is the object.
- Parallelism: items in a list or comparison must share grammatical form: reading, writing, and speaking, not reading, writing, and to speak.
Worked example
The number of students who ___ (have/has) registered for the exam ___ (have/has) risen. The head noun of the first clause is number (singular), and who refers to students (plural), so the first verb is have. The main verb belongs to number, so it is has. Reasoning: locate the true subject of each verb before applying the rule; intervening phrases and relative clauses are distractors.
Traps that cost marks
- Nearest-noun agreement: One of the boys were is wrong.
- Dangling modifiers: Walking to school, the rain began suggests the rain was walking.
- Double comparatives: more better.
- Mixing since with a simple past where present perfect is required.