Grammar for PTE writing: the points that matter most

Grammar is one of the six enabling skills in a PTE score report, and typed answers such as the essay and Summarize Written Text are among the places it is measured. The same few slips turn up again and again in learners' writing. You do not need advanced grammar to fix them, only careful control of the basics.

The verb must match: agreement and tense

Subject-verb agreement. Find the real subject before you choose the verb. It is often not the noun nearest to it.

Watch the trap in the other direction too: "A number of students are applying" is correct, because a number of simply means some.

Tense consistency. Choose the tense that matches the time you are writing about, and keep it until the time changes.

Small words: articles, prepositions and countable nouns

Articles. A singular countable noun almost never stands alone: it needs a, the, my, this or something similar. General plurals and uncountable nouns usually take no article. Use the when the reader already knows which one you mean.

The opposite fault is just as easy to make, with the where a general idea needs none:

Prepositions. These are learned in pairs, not by rule: depend on, interested in, different from, on the other hand. Some verbs take no preposition at all.

Countable and uncountable nouns. Information, advice, equipment, research and knowledge are uncountable, so they take no plural s, and people is already plural. Use fewer with countable nouns (fewer cars) and less with uncountable ones (less traffic).

Sentence boundaries and word forms

Fragments, run-ons and comma splices. A group of words that begins with because or which and has no main clause is not a sentence. And two complete statements need more than a comma.

Word forms. Pick the noun, verb, adjective or adverb that the sentence needs.

A 60-second self-check

Do not read your answer once and hope to spot mistakes. Read it three times, twenty seconds each, with one question per pass:

1. Boundaries. Does every sentence start with a capital, end with a full stop and contain a verb?
2. Verbs. Does each verb match its subject, and does the tense match the time?
3. Nouns. Does every singular countable noun have a, the, my or this, and are the plurals and uncountable nouns right?

Prepositions and word forms are harder to catch by looking, so treat them as a job for your error log. When you spot one in practice, write the wrong and right versions side by side, and check for those first next time. Keeping an error log shows one way to set it out.

Test your eye

Each sentence below has one error. Find it before you read the answers.

1. The cost of new roads are higher than many people expect.
2. When the council opened the park last spring, hundreds of families come on the first day.
3. Government announced a new scheme for small businesses.
4. Maria is interested on studying marketing.
5. Many people now understand the important of sleep.

Answers: (1) is, because the subject is cost, not roads. (2) came, to match the past time. (3) The government, because a singular noun needs a determiner. (4) interested in. (5) importance, because the sentence needs a noun.

Today, take your last essay, run the three passes and write down your two most frequent error types. Fix only those two in the next essay, then try a timed practice test and see whether they appear again.