Build a Sentence — the errors a Chinese speaker makes most
Build a Sentence
- You assemble or complete a sentence so that it is grammatically correct. Nothing else is measured.
- Twenty-three minutes covers this and both writing tasks, so these are meant to be quick.
- Read the finished sentence once, slowly. Most errors here are invisible on the first look and obvious on the second.
Articles, the hardest thing in English for a Chinese speaker
- Chinese has no articles, so a, an, the and no article at all are four choices where your first language offers none.
- First mention takes a/an; after that, the. I bought a book. The book was excellent.
- Uncountable nouns take no article and no plural: information, advice, equipment, research, homework.
Practice
Which is correct?
'Advice' is uncountable: no 'a', no plural. The same goes for information, equipment, research and homework.
Agreement and tense
- The verb must agree with its subject, not with the nearest noun: the list of names is long.
- Each, every and everyone take a singular verb.
- Keep the tense across the sentence. A time expression — last year, since 2020, by then — decides it.
Practice
Complete: 'The list of participants ___ on my desk.'
The subject is 'the list', not 'participants'. English agrees with the subject, not with the nearest noun — a favourite trap.
The words that carry prepositions
- A verb often owns its preposition: depend on, consist of, result in, participate in, apply for.
- Learn the verb and the preposition as one item, the way you learn a single word.
- Some verbs take none at all: discuss the problem, not discuss about the problem.
Practice
Complete: 'The result depends ___ the temperature.'
'Depend on' is one item. Learn the verb and its preposition together, the way you learn a single word.
Word order that is fixed in English
- Subject, verb, object. Adjectives before the noun. Adverbs of frequency before the main verb: she often works late.
- Never Although … but … or Because … so … — English uses one, not both.
- Format facts checked on the ETS website on 13 September 2026.
Practice
'Although it was raining, but we went out' is correct English.
English uses 'although' OR 'but', never both. The same rule kills 'Because … so …'. Both come straight from Chinese sentence patterns.