Spelling, punctuation and grammar

Two plural errors cost marks every sitting:

• Consonant + y nouns change -y to -ies: city -> cities, country -> countries - not citys. A vowel before the y just adds -s: day -> days.
• Irregular plurals are fixed forms to learn: child -> children, man -> men, woman -> women. childs and childrens are both wrong, because children is already plural.

Homophones sound identical, but the CHOICE depends on the sentence's meaning, so even a student who knows each word can pick wrong under pressure:

• its = belonging to it (no apostrophe); it's = it is/it has.
• their = belonging to them; there = a place; they're = they are.
• affect = verb (influence); effect = noun (result).

Examiners name weak sentence separation - commas where full stops are needed - as a common reason a composition is kept out of the top bands.

• Wrong: The market was crowded, we could barely move.
• Right: The market was crowded. We could barely move. Self-check: could each half stand alone? If yes, a bare comma is wrong; use a full stop, semicolon, or conjunction.

The single most-named grammar error across the reports, at every mark level, is dropping the definite or indefinite article (a/an, the).

• Wrong: I went to shop to buy present for teacher.
• Right: I went to the shop to buy a present for the teacher. When you proofread, check every noun has the article it needs - it is treated as a serious error, not a minor one.

Agreement errors between a plural noun and its verb form recur and can damage meaning:

• Wrong: This children needs a break. / Teachers needs breaks.
• Right: These children need a break. / Teachers need breaks. Match the verb to its true subject in number, and keep the demonstrative (this/these) agreeing too.

Candidates lose marks for misspelling key words that appear in the very source texts they have just read. Flagged examples across sittings include environment, tourism, colleague, apologise, programme, recommend, decision, bilingual and personality. If a word is printed in the passage, its spelling is there to copy - check any such word against the text before you submit.

A widespread misconception is that an apostrophe marks a plural, producing errors like fresh apple's. The apostrophe marks possession or a contraction, NEVER a plain plural:

• apples: more than one, no apostrophe.
• the girl's bag: one girl owns it.
• the girls' bags: several girls own bags. So more than one never justifies an apostrophe; only ownership does.

Because possession is usually shown with 's (the dog's bowl), students over-generalise and write the dog wagged it's tail. It is the opposite:

• its = belonging to it (possessive), takes NO apostrophe: the team lost its match.
• it's = the contraction of it is or it has: it's raining. Test by expanding: if it is or it has fits, write it's; otherwise its.