Core Grammar in Context
The Aptis grammar and vocabulary component tests how well you control everyday English structures. This chapter reviews the tense, conditional, relative-clause, and modal patterns that appear most often in single-sentence tasks.
Tenses and Time References
Match the verb form to the time signal in the sentence. Words like 'since' and 'for' with a present result call for the present perfect ('have lived'), while a finished past moment takes the past simple. In reported speech after a past verb such as 'said', present forms shift back one step, so 'will' becomes 'would'.
Conditionals and Modals
The second conditional ('if + past simple, would + base verb') describes unreal or unlikely situations. Modal verbs carry meaning too: 'must' expresses a confident conclusion from evidence, while 'can't' expresses the opposite certainty that something is impossible.
Relative Pronouns
Use 'who' for people as subjects, 'which' for things, and 'whose' to show possession by a person or thing. Choosing the right relative pronoun keeps the link between the clause and the noun it describes clear.