PAPER 3 - USE OF ENGLISH (1 hour 15 mins) > 40 marks

This paper tests your knowledge of English grammar and vocabulary. It has five different types of exercise: 

Part I - Gap-filling (multiple-choice)

This exercise tests your knowledge of vocabulary. You have a text with 15 gaps in it, and you have to decide which of four words or phrases best fills each gap.

OM PERSONAL ADVICE
Always read through the whole text first to get a general idea of the topic.

Part II - Gap-filling (open)

This exercise tests your knowledge of grammar. You are given a text with 15 gaps in it, and you have to fill each gap with one word of your own.

OM PERSONAL ADVICE
a) Read the text through a couple of times, until you have "seen the whole picture";
b) Only one word per gap. Never put in two, even if they make sense;
c) If you have no idea what to put, guess. You don't lose marks for a wrong answer - and you might just be right !!!

Part III - Rewriting sentences

This exercise tests your knowledge of English grammar and sentence structure, and some aspects of vocabulary. You have to rewrite 10 sentences so that the new sentence means the same as the sentence printed before it. You are given the beginning and end of the new sentence and a "key word" which you must include in your answer. You must not change this "key word" and you have to write between 2 and 5 words (including the "key word") to complete each sentence. Contractions (e.g. I've, it's, doesn't) count as two words.

OM PERSONAL ADVICE
Ask yourself: "What is each sentence testing?". This will help you to remember the appropriate grammar rule.

Part IV - Error correction

This exercise tests your ability to notice and then correct mistakes in written English. You are given a text which has some grammatical mistakes in it. Some of the lines in the text are correct, but some have a word which should not be there. Your task is to find the words which should not be there, so when you cross them out the lines become correct.

OM PERSONAL ADVICE
a) Remember that there is no more than one incorrect word in each line;
b) Do not cross out any correct words, even if the line still makes sense without them.

Part V - Word formation

You must complete a text by forming words. You form each word from one that is provided to the right of the text.

OM PERSONAL ADVICE
a) Decide what kind of word is needed in the gap (noun, verb, adjective or adverb);
b) Decide what part of the word is needed, that is, a singular or plural noun, the correct tense or part of a verb;
c) Check whether the sense suggests a negative prefix (e.g. un-, dis-) or suffix (e.g. -less);
d) If you add a suffix, check whether any other spelling change is needed (e.g. beauty - beautiful).