GENERAL EDUCATION – ENGLISH LET REVIEW NOTES

Basic Sentence Patterns (6 Core Frames)

S + Intransitive V – no object required
• “The sun rises.” (Ask V + WHAT/WHO → Ø)
S + Linking V + Complement (PN/PA)
• “The soup smells delicious.”
– Linking test: replace verb with "=", or swap with is/are.
– Complement types:
▪ PN (= subject, noun) → “You are a teacher.”
▪ PA (adjective) → “delicious”.
S + Transitive V + Direct O
• “Alex writes poems.” (V → WHAT? → poems)
S + Trans V + Indirect O + Direct O
• “I gave my friend a gift.”
– DO: “gave WHAT?” → gift
– IO: “to/for WHOM?” → friend
S + Trans V + DO + Object of Preposition
• “I wrote a poem under the tree.” → “tree” = object of prep “under”.
S + Trans V + DO + Object Complement
• “The committee appointed Jelmar chairperson.”
– “chairperson” renames DO → object complement.

Parts of Speech Highlights

Nouns (proper, common, collective, concrete, abstract, count / non-count)

Pronouns

Personal • Reflexive (myself), Intensive (himself) test → remove; if sentence ok → intensive.
Demonstrative (this/that/these/those)
Indefinite (everyone, few, several)
Interrogative (who, what, which)
Distributive (each, either, neither)
Relative (who, which, that introducing relative clause; antecedent reference)
Possessive (my, mine, his, hers)

Adjectives

Demonstrative adj. (needs noun) vs. demonstrative pron.
Interrogative adj. ("Which dress?")
Cardinal vs. Ordinal (number vs. order)
Coordinate (equal weight, joined by and), Possessive, Proper (capitalized), Descriptive.

Verbs: Kinds & Functions

Linking (connect S & complement)
Auxiliary (helping – be, do, have, modals) → always paired with main V.
Transitive / Intransitive
Ditransitive (two objects)
Ergative (can be transitive or intransitive) → “broke”.
Prepositional Verb (particle inseparable) → “dropped out of”.
Regular vs. Irregular forms.

Other Parts

Prepositions (location, direction, etc.)
Interjections (“Oh!”, “Yahoo!”)
Conjunctions
• Coordinating = FANBOYS (for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so)
• Subordinating (because, when, unless…)
• Correlative (either…or, neither…nor).

Sentence Functions & Structures

Functions: Declarative, Imperative, Interrogative, Exclamatory.
Structures & quick checklist:
• Simple = 1 IC
• Compound = 2 IC + coordinating conj.
• Complex = IC + DC + subordinating conj.
• Compound-complex = ≥2 IC + ≥1 DC.
Proximity rule with either/or, neither/nor: verb agrees with nearer subject.
“The number” (sing.) vs. “A number” (pl.).

Agreement, Comparison & Conditionals

Subject–verb traps: statistics, mathematics, news → singular.
Adjective comparison
• Short (1–2 syll.): add -er/-est → big → bigger → biggest
• Ends in Y: change y→i (prettier)
• Long (≥3 syll.): more / most
• Irregular: good-better-best, bad-worse-worst.
Conditionals
• Zero (fact) → if+S+V{present}, S+V{present}
• First (real future) → if + present, will + base
• Second (unlikely) → if + past, would + base
• Third (past regret) → if + had + PP, would have + PP.
Verb Moods: Indicative (statements/questions), Imperative (commands), Subjunctive (wishes, demands: “I wish you were…”).

Phonology Basics

Voiced vs. Voiceless test → hand on larynx vibration.
Vocal cords in larynx.
Suprasegmentals
• Pitch (high/low)
• Stress (emphasis)
• Volume (loud/soft).

Poetry & Metrics

Feet (scratch = stressed, dot = unstressed):
• Iamb (. /)
• Trochee (/ .)
• Anapest (. . /)
• Dactyl (/ . .)
• Spondee (/ /)
• Pyrrhic (. .)
Haiku 5!+!7!+!5 syllables (nature).
Other Japanese forms:
• Tanka: 5!+!7!+!5!+!7!+!7=31 syll.
• Choka: alternate 5,7,…,5,7,7
• Renga: collaborative linked verses.
Sonnet = 14 lines; Elegy = poem for the dead; Ode = exalted praise.
Epic = long narrative of heroic deeds (e.g., Beowulf).

Key Literary Devices (selection)

Alliteration, Assonance (vowel mid/end), Consonance.
Metaphor (direct), Simile (like/as), Personification.
Hyperbole (exaggeration), Litotes (double negative → positive).
Oxymoron ("deafening silence"), Paradox, Apostrophe (address absent entity), Rhetorical Question.
Metonymy (name substitution: "crown" → king), Synecdoche (part → whole).
Anaphora (repeat at line start), Anastrophe (inverted order), Ellipsis (…), Euphemism vs. Dysphemism, Cacophony vs. Euphony.
Motif (recurring element), Foreshadowing, Flashback, Deus ex machina, Frame Story (story-within-story, e.g., One Thousand and One Nights).
Allegory (symbolic narrative), Epistolary novel (via letters).

Selected Authors & Works

Philippines
• Paz Marquez-Benítez – “Dead Stars”
• Amador Daguio – “Wedding Dance”
• Manuel Arguilla – “How My Brother Leon Brought Home a Wife”
• Nick Joaquin – “May Day Eve”
• Edith Tiempo – A Blade of Fern, A Stream of Darkness ("long silence")
• Jose Garcia Villa – comma poet.
World
• William Shakespeare – tragedies & comedies; quote “To be or not to be” (indecision).
• Edgar Allan Poe – Father of horror & detective fiction; “The Raven” (refrain nevermore), “Cask of Amontillado”.
• Antoine de Saint-Exupéry – The Little Prince (“Only the heart can see rightly”).
• John Milton – Paradise Lost (Adam & Eve).
• Rabindranath Tagore – Gitanjali (Nobel 1913).
• Homer – Iliad, Odyssey; Virgil – Aeneid.
• Sophocles – Oedipus Rex; Euripides – Alcestis, Andromache.
• Rudyard Kipling – The Jungle Book.
• Omar Khayyam – Rubaiyat (theme: seize pleasure).

Greek & Roman Deities (quick table)

\text{Zeus} \to \text{Jupiter} – sky, thunder, king.
\text{Hera} \to \text{Juno} – marriage.
\text{Poseidon} \to \text{Neptune} – sea, quakes.
\text{Hades} \to \text{Pluto} – underworld (god of the dead \neq god of death \text{Thanatos}).
\text{Demeter} \to \text{Ceres} – agriculture.
\text{Hestia} \to \text{Vesta} – hearth, home.
\text{Athena} \to \text{Minerva} – wisdom, strategic war.
\text{Ares} \to \text{Mars} – violent war.
\text{Apollo} – light, arts (same name in Roman).
\text{Artemis} \to \text{Diana} – hunt, moon.
\text{Aphrodite} \to \text{Venus} – love, beauty.
\text{Hephaestus} \to \text{Vulcan} – fire, forge.
\text{Hermes} \to \text{Mercury} – messenger.
\text{Dionysus} \to \text{Bacchus} – wine, revelry.
\text{Eros} \to \text{Cupid} – attraction.
\text{Persephone} \to \text{Proserpina} – queen underworld, symbol pomegranate.

Common LET “Vocabulary Traps”

pension – fondness, liking.
transmute – change.
impertinent – irrelevant / rude.
esoteric – understood by few.
candor – frankness.
rancor – bitter resentment.
sine qua non – essential element.
skeptical – doubtful.
kikay – flirtatious (slang).
apocalyptic – prophetic.
aplomb – composure (≃ equanimity).
profanity – obscenity.
loquacious – talkative.
badoy – awkward, unfashionable.

Idioms Reviewed

“put a finger in the pie” – participate.
“in the red” – running a deficit.
“at sixes and sevens” – confused.
“first-rate” – excellent.
“beat around the bush” – avoid the point.
“white elephant” – costly but useless possession.
“Rome wasn’t built in a day” – great things need time.
“storm in a teacup” – fuss over nothing.

Quick Grammar Reminders & Tricks

Tag questions: positive statement → negative tag (Donny is great, isn’t he?).
Lay/Lie confusion:
• lay – laid – laid (needs object)
• lie – lay – lain (no object)
• lie – lied – lied (tell falsehood).
Quantifiers w/ plural nouns → “many”, “few”, “a lot of”.
Word-order of adjectives: DOSA-COMP (Determiner, Opinion, Size, Age, Shape, Color, Origin, Material, Purpose) → “a classy latest black pure-leather Gibi shoes”.
Run-on vs. Comma splice vs. Fragment vs. Dangling modifier diagnostics & fixes.
Rule: “Had + PP, would have + PP” → 3rd conditional regret.

Sample Board-Style Drill (with keys)

“Green-eyed monster” in She called her best friend a green-eyed monster → object complement.
Reading maketh a full man → gerund as subject.
Stella’s life-threatening hobby is skydiving → gerund as subject complement.
Everyone met at the contest venue → indefinite pronoun.
Voiceless phoneme among /f/, /v/, /z/, /θ/? → /θ/.
Sentence “Tom and Jerry were creeping … when …” = complex.
Paradise Lost basis → Fall of Man (Adam & Eve).
1001 Nights narrative structure → frame story / story within story.
Author of How My Brother Leon Brought Home a Wife → Manuel Arguilla.