·What we looked at
The Core reviewed: where people go wrong. There is no new theory here: there is data on what is actually missed. It comes from the AptisBot question bank, measured on the sixteenth of October two thousand and twenty-six, with sixty-six thousand two hundred and fifty-nine grammar answers at levels A1 to B2, which is as far as the Core goes. These are not exam figures: they come from users who practise with us. In grammar, the average error rate is thirty-two percent. We are going to see which topics are missed most, six specific questions, the vocabulary, and how to build your own revision plan.
1/4Grammar: the topics with the most mistakes
In grammar, the topics with the most mistakes among the A1 to B2 questions are these. Subject-verb agreement, a fifty-one percent error rate. Business collocations, fifty percent. Modal perfect with couldn't have, forty-eight percent. Ellipsis, forty-five. Double comparatives, forty-four. Phrasal verbs, forty-three, and it is the topic with the most answers, more than three thousand six hundred. And dependent prepositions, forty-two. Two things. First, most of these topics are not pure grammar: they are word combinations. And second, we have already worked on several of them in this course: modals, phrasal verbs, prepositions and comparatives.
2/4Six much-missed questions
Six specific questions, with their error rate. One: passengers are kindly requested to refrain from using mobile phones. Eighty-five percent error rate. Refrain from is the formal expression used in notices; avoid does not take from. Two: whether I go or stay, seventy-four. Whether and or introduce two alternatives. Three: she avoided seeing him, seventy-one. Avoid takes ing. Four: it's such good news, seventy-one. News is uncountable: it takes no a. Five: the teacher asked the students not to hand in late assignments, sixty-seven. Asked, plus object, plus infinitive. And six: he is accustomed to handling pressure, sixty-seven. Be accustomed to takes ing, because to is a preposition.
3/4Vocabulary: tasks and mistakes
In vocabulary, also with data from our bank, at levels A1 to B2, this is what is missed by task. Collocations, a thirty-nine percent error rate, with more than seven thousand four hundred answers. Meaning in context, thirty-three. Synonyms, twenty-three. And definitions, twenty-one. Two more from the bank, which are not official Core tasks but are practised: phrasal verbs, with a fifty-one percent error rate, and idioms, with fifty-three. The reading is clear: the more it depends on word combinations and usage, the more it is missed. Definitions, which you can reason out, are the safest.
4/4Error patterns
If you look at the six questions and the topics, four patterns appear. First, the preposition that goes with a word: refrain from, accustomed to, dependent on. Second, what comes after the verb: ing or infinitive. Third, uncountable words, like news, which take no a and no plural. And fourth, formal collocations, which you either know or don't, and which can't be deduced. All four have one answer in common: learn the word with what goes with it, not on its own. It is the rule that works best for the Core, and it is our reading, not an exam rule.
·Your revision plan
Your revision plan. First, do a round of twenty-five grammar questions and another of twenty-five vocabulary questions, and note each mistake with its topic. Second, rank your topics from most to fewest mistakes and keep the top three. Third, for each mistake, write out the whole correct sentence, with the preposition or collocation included, and read it aloud. Fourth, repeat the round three days later and compare. And remember: the figures in this video are from our bank; yours are the ones that count.