IMAT Reading Skills and General Knowledge · Formula sheet

English Language and Grammar formulas

1 formula, 5 reference tables and 9 common traps for IMAT Reading Skills and General Knowledge English Language and Grammar, grouped by subtopic.

Full notes with worked examples

Tenses, Voice, Reported Speech and Conditionals

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Active and passive voice: recognising and forming the passive in every tense

Passive voice

\text{passive} = \textit{be}\ (\text{in the tense}) + \text{past participle}

$be$ am, is, are, was, were, been, being, will be
past participlethe third form of the verb: checked, written, taken, sung

The English tenses: time and aspect

Tense	Form	Example	Typical use
Present simple	base form (+ s after he, she, it)	She studies every evening.	Habits and general truths
Present continuous	am, is, are + -ing	She is studying now.	An action in progress now
Present perfect	have, has + past participle	She has studied anatomy.	A past action linked to now
Present perfect continuous	have, has been + -ing	She has been studying for two hours.	An action continuing up to now
Past simple	past form	She studied in Rome.	A finished action at a past time
Past continuous	was, were + -ing	She was studying when I called.	An action in progress at a past moment
Past perfect	had + past participle	She had studied before the exam began.	An action before another past action
Future simple	will + base form	She will study tomorrow.	Predictions and decisions
Future continuous	will be + -ing	She will be studying at nine.	In progress at a future moment
Future perfect	will have + past participle	She will have finished by June.	Completed before a future time

The helping verb carries the time; the form of the main verb (-ing or past participle) carries the aspect.

Conditionals: zero, first, second, third and mixed

Type	If-clause	Main clause	Example	Meaning
Zero	present simple	present simple	If you heat ice, it melts.	Always true: a general fact
First	present simple	will + base form	If it rains, the match will be cancelled.	A real, likely future
Second	past simple	would + base form	If I had more time, I would learn Greek.	Unreal or unlikely, now or in the future
Third	past perfect	would have + past participle	If she had studied, she would have passed.	Unreal past: it did not happen
Mixed	past perfect	would + base form	If he had taken the job, he would live in Milan now.	Past condition, present result

Common traps

A past participle alone is not a verb

'Written', 'taken' and 'sung' are past participles. They need a helping verb: 'has written' is the present perfect, 'was written' is a passive. The past participle never works as the main verb of a sentence on its own.

Be + -ing is not passive

'The choir was singing' is the active past continuous: the choir does the singing. A passive needs a past participle: 'The hymn was being sung'. Do not let the 'was' fool you.

A passive need not contain 'by'

'The bridge was built in 1890' is passive although the builder is never named. Look for a form of be followed by a past participle, not for the word 'by'.

A reported question loses the question word order

'Where is the lab?' becomes 'she asked where the lab was', not 'she asked where was the lab'. A reported question is a statement: subject before verb, and no question mark.

No will or would after if

'If it will rain' and 'If I would have known' are common errors. The if-clause takes the present for a real condition, the past for an unreal present and the past perfect for an unreal past. 'Will' and 'would' belong in the main clause.

Sentence Roles, Common Errors, Vocabulary and Language Families

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Parts of speech and sentence roles: subject, object and clauses

Part of speech	Job	Examples
Noun	Names a person, thing, place or idea	doctor, cell, Rome, freedom
Pronoun	Stands in place of a noun	she, it, them, who, which
Verb	Expresses an action or a state	analyse, is, seems
Adjective	Describes a noun	rapid, chronic, red
Adverb	Describes a verb, an adjective or another adverb	rapidly, very, often
Preposition	Links a noun to the rest of the sentence (place, time, relation)	in, on, by, during
Conjunction	Joins words or clauses	and, but, because, although
Article or determiner	Comes before a noun and limits it	a, the, this, some

Common errors: agreement, pronouns, its and it's, who and whom, fewer and less

Rule	Correct use	Quick test	Example
its or it's	its = belonging to it; it's = it is or it has	Say 'it is': if it fits, write it's	The cell lost its nucleus. It's late.
who or whom	who = subject; whom = object, often after a preposition	he → who, him → whom	Who called? To whom did you write?
fewer or less	fewer with plural nouns you can count; less with things you measure	Can you count them one by one?	fewer patients, less blood
Subject and verb	The verb agrees with the head noun	Cover the 'of ...' phrase	The box of samples is ready.
Each, neither, everyone	Singular verb	Read as 'each one'	Each of the students has a locker.
their, there, they're	belonging to them; a place; they are	Expand they're to 'they are'	They're in their room over there.
affect or effect	affect is usually a verb; effect is usually a noun	Can 'the' go in front? Then effect	Stress affects sleep; it has an effect on sleep.

Language families of Europe: Romance, Germanic, Slavic and the rest

Branch or family	Members	Watch out
Romance (from Latin)	Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Catalan, Romanian	Romanian is Romance although most of its neighbours speak Slavic languages or Hungarian
Germanic	English, German, Dutch, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic	English is Germanic, though much of its vocabulary comes from Latin and French
Slavic	Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Slovene, Serbian, Croatian, Bulgarian	Some use Cyrillic and some the Latin alphabet; the alphabet does not decide the branch
Baltic	Lithuanian, Latvian	Neighbours of the Slavic languages, but a separate branch
Celtic	Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Welsh, Breton	Breton is spoken in France but is Celtic, not Romance
Greek and Albanian	Greek; Albanian	Each is a branch of Indo-European on its own
Not Indo-European	Finnish, Estonian, Hungarian (Uralic); Basque (isolate); Maltese (Semitic); Turkish (Turkic)	Maltese uses the Latin alphabet but is related to Arabic

Common traps

The subject is not always the first noun

In 'In the corner stood an old microscope' or 'The results of the test were clear', the first noun is not the subject. Find what the verb agrees with: 'results were', not 'test was'.

Less with things you can count

'Less patients' is a common error: patients can be counted, so it is 'fewer patients'. 'Less' goes with things measured rather than counted: less water, less time. Everyday English does say 'less than ten euros' or 'less than five kilometres', treating the amount as a single quantity.

False friends

'Eventually' means in the end, 'actually' means in fact, 'sensible' means reasonable, and a 'library' lends books rather than selling them. A word that looks like one in Italian, Spanish or French may not mean the same thing; check your guess against the sentence.

Geography is not family

A language spoken among Slavic neighbours can be Romance (Romanian) or Baltic (Lithuanian). A language spoken in France can be Celtic (Breton), and Basque, spoken in Spain and France, belongs to no family at all. Learn the branch of each language, not its location.