ACET English Review: Grammar, Vocabulary, Usage
ACET English Review: Grammar, Vocabulary, Usage
English is one of the four multiple-choice areas of the Ateneo College Entrance Test, alongside mathematics, general knowledge and abstract reasoning — and the ACET's essay segment is written in English too. Ateneo doesn't publish the item types or how many English items there are, so this post covers the skills a strong English section usually demands.
This is the topic plan that the ACET pillar guide hands off to.
Grammar
Practise until you can spot these quickly:
- Subject-verb agreement
- Pronoun reference and pronoun-antecedent agreement
- Tense consistency
- Active vs passive voice
- Misplaced and dangling modifiers
- Comma splices and run-on sentences
- Word choice (affect/effect, fewer/less, who/whom)
- Apostrophes
- Parallel structure
- Basic subjunctive mood ("If I were…")
Vocabulary
Aim for solid academic English — the level of a newspaper editorial or a textbook introduction. The most efficient habit:
- Read one English editorial a day from a major Philippine paper
- Note unfamiliar words and look them up in context
Twelve weeks of this builds vocabulary in a way no word list can.
Sentence completion
- Read the whole sentence first
- Look for context clues, especially transition words ("however", "because", "although")
- Predict the kind of word that fits before you look at the options
Sentence improvement
When a sentence has an underlined part to fix, name the problem first — parallelism, a dangling modifier, a tense shift — then choose the cleanest revision that fixes only that problem.
Spelling and idioms
- Commonly confused words and spellings
- Idiomatic prepositions ("interested in", "agree with", "different from")
Reading
English tests almost always include reading passages. Our ACET reading guide covers how to practise them.
A 3-week English drilling plan
| Week | Focus | Volume target |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Grammar: agreement, modifiers, parallelism | 80 items |
| 2 | Vocabulary and sentence completion | 60 items |
| 3 | Sentence improvement, spelling, and one full timed practice set | 1 set + 40 items |
Keep the daily editorial habit running throughout.
Answer every item
Ateneo's FAQ says the ACET is not right-minus-wrong, so never leave an English item blank — make your best choice and move on.
Where Super Tutor fits
Super Tutor's ACET reviewer includes a language proficiency subject — grammar, vocabulary and reading — with every chapter in 11 study formats and practice quizzes at three difficulty levels. The AI tutor can explain why an answer is right. Start free — 5-day trial, no card needed.
What to read next
The ACET pillar guide covers the full review. The ACET reading guide covers passages.
Start your ACET review free
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