Language-use tasks ask you to complete or correct a passage so that every word fits its sentence and the text around it. You get these right by reading the clues, not by reciting a rule.
This chapter is part of the SPM English guide. The same habits improve your own writing too, so use it with the English writing task checklist.
What are the four checks for a gap?
Test each gap in this order. A wrong answer fails at one of these four steps.
- Choosing tenses from context: time words and the order of events.
- Selecting connectors that fit the relationship: contrast, reason, result or addition.
- Using collocations and prepositions accurately: fixed pairings such as depend on and make a decision.
- Checking agreement across a paragraph: subject and verb, pronoun and noun.
One sentence, four checks
Take this sentence: “Although the road ___ (flood) since Monday, the bus still arrived ___ time, and each of the passengers ___ (thank) the driver.”
The words “since Monday” point to the present perfect, so the first gap is “has been flooded”. The preposition in “arrived ___ time” is “on”. The last gap is “thanked”, matching the past tense of “arrived”. In a present-tense version, “each of the passengers” would need the singular “thanks”.
That one sentence used all four checks. The lessons teach them one at a time, and the practice set mixes them again.
Who should start where?
Match your situation to a starting point:
- If your verbs change tense without a reason, begin with tenses.
- If your gaps are small linking words, begin with connectors.
- If your answers sound odd but you cannot say why, begin with collocations.
- If you know the rules but lose marks in long paragraphs, begin with agreement.
When you want a mixed test, use the cloze and language use practice set. To go through your own mistakes with a teacher, see online one-to-one English tuition.