Vocabulary, language features and text structure knowledge
What this domain tests
Vocabulary and language-feature questions ask what a word means in context and how language choices create effect. Structure questions ask how a text is organised and how paragraphs, sentences, and linking words guide the reader.
Core rules
- Use context clues: restatement (“that is”), example (“such as”), contrast (“unlike”, “but”), and cause-result (“therefore”, “because”).
- Break words into morphemes: prefix + root + suffix. Incredible = not believable; mismanagement = bad management.
- Distinguish denotation (dictionary meaning) from connotation (associated feeling): childlike versus childish.
- Name the feature and its effect, not just the label. A rhetorical question invites agreement; repetition stresses a point; short sentences can quicken pace or harden tone.
- Structure signals: problem–solution, cause–effect, compare–contrast, chronological, general-to-specific. Topic sentences often state a paragraph’s job.
Worked example
Sentence: “The council’s ‘consultation’ was a box-ticking exercise: surveys closed before most residents knew they existed.” Question: What does the quotation marks around consultation suggest? Reasoning: Quotation marks distance the writer from the word, implying it is not genuine consultation. The colon introduces evidence: surveys closed early. The effect is scepticism or irony, not a neutral label. Answer: the writer doubts the consultation was real.
Traps
Defining a word by its most common meaning when the context signals another; identifying a metaphor but not explaining its effect; confusing connotation with denotation; missing pronouns that refer back to an earlier noun; labelling a text “compare–contrast” without checking the linking words.