Grammar & Sentence Structure
This chapter covers the sentence-level grammar that strong academic English depends on: subject-verb agreement, relative clauses, conditionals, verb patterns, and parallel structure. Note that this practice set focuses on English language usage and does not reproduce the TOEFL iBT's Listening, Speaking, or Writing tasks.
Agreement and Relative Clauses
Match verbs to their true subjects: 'the number of' is singular, while 'a number of' is plural. Use 'who' for people and 'which' for things when adding a relative clause, choosing subject or object forms as the clause requires.
Conditionals and Verb Patterns
In first conditionals about real future events, the 'if' clause uses the present simple while the main clause uses 'will'. Learn which verbs take gerunds (avoid, enjoy, finish) versus infinitives, since this is frequently tested.
Parallel Structure
Items joined in a list or by 'and' must share the same grammatical form. If two items are gerunds ('reading, writing'), the third must be a gerund too ('painting'), not an infinitive or a conjugated verb.