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Key Terms - Nouns, Verbs & Sentence Types

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Key Terms for English Language - Nouns

You need to know the following key terms for your English Language exam:

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Noun

  • A person, place, thing, feeling or idea.
    • E.g. London, mum, cat, table, happiness.
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Abstract noun

  • An idea or concept - something that you cannot actually see, touch, hear, smell or taste. The opposite of a concrete noun.
    • E.g. Love, hatred, anger, happiness, truth, freedom, dedication, peace, knowledge.
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Collective noun

  • A group of nouns.
    • E.g. Team, army, family, group, audience, herd.
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Common noun

  • All nouns are either common nouns or proper nouns. Common nouns are places, things, feelings or ideas.
    • E.g. Home, school, book, computer, trees, television.
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Concrete noun

  • A thing (noun) that can be touched, tasted, heard, seen, or smelt. The opposite of an abstract noun.
    • E.g. Dog, building, tree, fire, water.
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Pronoun

  • A word used to replace a noun. We use pronouns so we don't need to repeat the same nouns over and over again.
    • E.g. I, you, he, she, it, we, they, me.
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Proper noun

  • All nouns are either common nouns or proper nouns. Proper nouns are the names of specific people or places.
    • E.g. Kate, Harry, Liverpool, England, BBC.

Key Terms for English Language - Verbs

You need to know the following key terms for your English Language exam:

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Verb

  • An action - a doing word.
    • E.g. Sing, walk, dance, laugh, watch, be, do.
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Dynamic verb

  • A verb which is physically moving or changing.
    • E.g. Eat, walk, learn, grow, sleep, talk, run, read, become, go.
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Stative verb

  • A verb which does not physically move - you cannot see, feel, hear, taste or smell them happening, but they are still happening.
    • E.g. Love, hate, prefer, doubt, seem, know, own, understand.
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Imperative verbs

  • Verbs which give orders – bossy verbs.
    • E.g. Stop, bring, give, tell me.

Key Terms for English Language - Sentence and Clause Types

You need to know the following key terms for your English Language exam:

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Complex sentence

  • A complex sentence is formed when you join a main clause and a subordinate clause with a connective.
  • Some connectives include: when, if, because, although.
    • E.g. While the wind blew, people stayed indoors.
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Compound sentence

  • A compound sentence is formed when you join two main clauses with a connective.
  • Some connectives include: and, but, so, or.
    • E.g. The sand was rough on my skin but the sun was gleaming brilliantly off the water.
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Main clause

  • A main clause is a clause that contains a subject, verb and an object. Main clauses make sense on their own.
    • E.g. I like bananas.
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Simple sentence

  • A simple sentence has one clause. It only has a verb and a subject.
    • E.g. She picked up the brown box.
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Subordinate clause

  • A subordinate clause is one that relies on a main clause to make sense - it contains a subject and a verb, and adds extra information to the sentence. It needs to be attached to a main clause because it cannot make sense on its own.
    • E.g. After she noticed it was missing… (What happened?)

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1Key Terms

2Language Techniques

3Paper 1: Reading

4Paper 1: Writing

5Paper 2: Reading

6Paper 2: Writing

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