English
What to cover
English items in initial tests check grammar accuracy, vocabulary range and fast comprehension, not literary analysis. Revise parts of speech, tense consistency, subject–verb agreement, articles, prepositions, active and passive voice, direct and indirect speech, degrees of comparison, and common idioms. For vocabulary, learn synonyms and antonyms as pairs (for example scarce / abundant) and practise picking the word that fits the sentence's tone. In comprehension, read the question first, then scan the passage for the exact line that answers it.
Traps
- Interrupting phrases: in "The box of chocolates was on the shelf", the verb agrees with box, not chocolates.
- Neither, either, each, every take a singular verb.
- Since vs for: since marks a point in time, for marks a duration.
- Double negatives cancel out: "I didn't see nobody" is wrong.
- Near-identical options: two answers often differ by one word such as not or always. Read every option fully.
Rule of thumb
For agreement and preposition items, strip the sentence to its bones. Cross out every prepositional phrase and every phrase set off by commas; whatever noun remains is the real subject.
Worked example: Neither of the two candidates (was / were) present. Remove "of the two candidates" and the subject is Neither, which is singular. Answer: was.
Budget about 30–40 seconds per grammar item and keep more time for comprehension passages, which carry more marks per question.