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PSLE English Grammar MCQ: Do's & Don'ts
9 Aug 2025·4 min read·The Tutor's Table
Paper 2 Grammar MCQ tests the same 8–10 patterns every year: tense, concord, articles, prepositions, pronouns, determiners, connectors, and verb forms. Drilling the patterns is worth more than any 'tips' list — but here's how to avoid losing the ones you should get.
Do's
- DO cover the options and predict the answer first. Then look at the options. If your prediction matches one, it's almost always correct.
- DO use the 'echo test' for subject-verb agreement: say 'he was' or 'they were' silently and feel the match.
- DO learn the top pronoun traps: 'either of them IS', 'neither you nor I AM', 'each of the students HAS'.
- DO eliminate 2 clearly wrong options before deciding between the remaining 2.
- DO mark your gut answer immediately — changing answers on MCQ grammar is usually a mistake.
- DO treat the connectors (although, despite, whereas, however) as different parts of speech — that's where 70% of connector questions hide.
Don'ts
- DON'T spend more than 45 seconds per question. If stuck, mark your best guess and move on.
- DON'T be tricked by the longest option. Length doesn't mean correct.
- DON'T translate the sentence literally from another language in your head — English grammar follows its own logic.
- DON'T rely on 'it sounds right' alone for tricky tense questions. Identify the time-marker in the sentence.
- DON'T leave any question blank. A guess has a 25% hit rate; blank is 0%.
- DON'T cram grammar the night before. Spaced 10-minute drills over a month beat a 3-hour panic session.
Grammar MCQ is the most trainable section on the paper. Ten minutes a day for a month, and the marks follow.
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