English Paper - Preparation and Details

A follower of my blog recently asked me how to prepare for the English, Math reasoning and Science reasoning portion of the test and I think it's imperative that I offer my advice on these subjects as well. So here goes: (This post is for English, a post for Math Reasoning and Science Reasoning is coming out very soon as well)

Here's a link to my post on how to prepare for the 3 Science Sections: http://getintoaku.blogspot.com/2017/11/entry-test-prep-resources-for.html

First off, you need to realize that each of these portions are equally important as the three science subject tests. I will be extremely honest, having aced these three portions is the only reason i was able to clear the entrance test, so yeah try to do well here. Having said that, you must also know that these three portions are much much easier than the science subject tests so you will be spending most (if not all) of your time preparing for physics, Chem and Bio.

Let us dive into the English paper now.

A bit of paper pattern first (I'll try and make a separate post on this soon). The English paper is an entirely separate paper from the Science Paper (the science paper includes the 3 sciences and the 2 reasoning portions). There are 60 Multiple Choice Questions for English that must be completed in 60 minutes. There is no negative marking in the English paper.

The English Paper really is pretty simple and tests your basic vocabulary, grammar and sentence structure. The cutoff percentage for last year was 55% in the English paper, and everyone I know of had comfortably cleared it. If you can read everything in this post with ease, you're pretty much ready to sit the test. If you've studied English Language at O levels and achieved a reasonable (doesn't need to be super outstanding) grade, the paper should be a breeze for you and you'll see yourself scoring anywhere over 75% all the way to a perfect 100%.

I would definitely not recommend spending a lot of time preparing for the English simply because you will clear it as long as you sit the test sincerely and because you'll be spending most (all) of your time preparing for the much more challenging science paper. If you still feel like you need to worry about something in this paper, I think it could be the time limit, since 60 minutes for 60 MCQS can be pretty tight.

Now a couple of specifics. There's no negative marking in this paper. So you should definitely attempt ALL of the 60 questions, guessing the ones you don't know. Secondly, there's no essay writing or comprehension passages (I heard of such things being a part of the test when I was preparing) in AKU's English Paper. The test only assesses grammar, sentence structure and general vocabulary (I talk about the details later in this post). This English Test is a separate paper from the science paper, it is collected before the Science paper is handed to you.

Still feel like preparing for English? If you do, here's some links for your satisfaction.

• http://www.englishlanguagetesting.co.uk/ This site is recommended by AKU itself for preparation.
• https://www.aku.edu/admissions/Documents/sample-paper-MBBS.pdf This will take you to AKU's official Sample Paper, and you can have a look at what kind of questions each section consists of.
• Google, "Password English Test" and explore the links that come up and look for practice papers for, well... practice. Basically, AKU uses an English Language Testing Company by the name of Password for its English Entry Test, so what better way to prepare than to attempt a couple of official papers.

That's it for now. The post on the Reasoning portions is coming out very soon so stay tuned!

Cheers till then!