English

Parts of Speech

The eight word classes, what job each does in a sentence, and the key idea that a word's class depends on how it is used, not on the word itself - the foundation for error detection and sentence improvement.

Sentence Structure

What a grammatical sentence must contain, the difference between a phrase and a clause and between independent and dependent clauses, the four sentence types, and how to spot and repair a fragment or a run-on.

Tenses

The twelve tense-aspect forms, what each says about time and completeness, the present perfect versus the past simple, and the tense shifts required in reported speech and after past main verbs.

Pronouns

The kinds of pronoun, choosing the right case (subject, object, possessive), making a pronoun agree with its antecedent in number and person, avoiding vague or ambiguous reference, and the who-versus-whom and that-versus-which decisions.

Articles and Determiners

When to use a, an, the or no article; choosing a or an by sound rather than spelling; the main uses of the definite article; and the other determiners that compete for the same slot before a noun.

Subject-Verb Agreement

How a verb agrees with its real subject in number and person, and the recurring traps banks test: intervening phrases, indefinite pronouns, compound subjects, collective nouns and quantity expressions.

Prepositions

Prepositions of time and place (in, on, at), preposition collocations that go with particular verbs and adjectives, telling a preposition from a conjunction or an adverb particle, and the fixed pairs the exams test again and again.

Adjectives, Adverbs and Modifiers

Choosing between an adjective and an adverb, the degrees of comparison and their traps, the order adjectives take before a noun, and how to spot and repair a misplaced or dangling modifier.

Conjunctions and Connectors

Coordinating, subordinating and correlative conjunctions, how they punctuate, conjunctive adverbs and transition words, and choosing the connector whose meaning — contrast, cause, addition, sequence, condition — matches the logic of the two ideas.

Parallelism

Putting items that play the same role into the same grammatical form — in a list, after a correlative pair, in a comparison, and after a single governing word — and spotting the faulty parallelism that error-detection and sentence-improvement questions rely on.

Error Detection

How the spot-the-error question is built, a checklist of the error types it draws on, and a method for scanning a split sentence quickly without second-guessing the parts that are correct.

Sentence Improvement

How the replace-the-underlined-part question works, the recurring patterns it tests - parallelism, modifier placement, conciseness, idiom and preposition - and when the right answer is 'no improvement'.

Reading Comprehension Strategy

How to work an RC passage under time: the order to read in, the question types and what each is really asking, an elimination method for the options, and how to handle inference, tone and vocabulary-in-context items.

Single and Double Fillers

How the fill-in-the-blank question is scored: filtering the options by grammar fit, meaning fit and collocation, handling one blank, and handling two blanks where both words must fit and the link between them matters.

Cloze Test

A passage with numbered blanks tests vocabulary, collocation, connectors, grammar and coherence together. How to read the passage first, work out what each blank is testing, and use the sentence before and after to choose.

Word Usage and Word Swap

Two related question types: pick the sentence that uses a given word correctly, and spot the two words in a sentence that have been interchanged. Both turn on the exact sense of a word and the company it keeps.

Phrase Replacement

A phrase in the sentence is highlighted and you choose the best replacement — or 'No replacement required' when it is already correct. How to predict the fix, test each option in the full sentence, and recognise when nothing needs changing.

Para Jumbles

Rearranging shuffled sentences into one coherent paragraph. Anchoring the first and last sentence, linking the rest by pronoun reference, connectors and time order, spotting mandatory pairs, and testing candidate orders against the given options.

The Descriptive Paper: What It Tests

How the typed descriptive paper is set and marked — a letter and an essay in about thirty minutes — what the four marking areas are, how to split the time, and why word count, paragraphing and a formal register decide most of the score.

Formal Letter Writing

The bank-exam formal letter: its fixed layout, the job each of the three body paragraphs does, the tone for a complaint, request, enquiry or application, and a full worked complaint letter with a note on why each part works.

Essay Writing

Planning an exam essay in three or four minutes, the introduction-body-conclusion shape, topic sentences and linking words, staying on the prompt, and a worked plan with an annotated opening paragraph.

Precis Writing

Compressing a passage to about a third of its length in your own words while keeping the order of ideas: the rules, a five-step method, a fully worked passage with marked core points and a model precis, and what to cut versus keep.

Email Writing

The short workplace email: when a task wants an email rather than a letter, the subject-line, greeting, one or two paragraphs and sign-off, the register for an internal versus an external reader, and a worked internal notice.

Idioms and Phrases

How idiom questions are set, a method for reading an idiom from the sentence around it rather than from memory, a themed set of common idioms with plain glosses, and the traps of literal reading and near-miss meanings.

One-Word Substitution

The question that gives a defining phrase and asks for the single word it names, a method built on prefixes and roots, and a domain-grouped set of the words that recur - people, government, fears and studies, speech and writing, places.

Synonyms and Antonyms in Context

Why the right synonym or antonym depends on the sentence and not a dictionary list, how register and connotation decide between close options, and a working set of exam words with a best synonym and best antonym for each.

Commonly Confused Words

The word pairs and trios that error-detection, fill-in and sentence-improvement questions repeatedly exploit - sound-alikes, spelling-only pairs, meaning pairs and grammar-choice pairs - each with a one-line distinction and an original sentence for every member.

Phrasal Verbs

What a phrasal verb is, how the particle changes the meaning, the separable / inseparable distinction, a base-verb-grouped set of the common ones with plain glosses, and a note on their register for the descriptive paper.