Readers of this blog will know that my preferred grammar book is English Grammar in Use (5th Edition). You can buy it on Amazon. I usually recommend it to students who want to increase their writing scores. Since the book is quite long, I’ve created a list of specific units that students can focus on (along with a few notes about the reasons for my choices).
Before you read the list, though, a few things should be recognized:
- You really should communicate with a teacher to see what units are best for you. This list is just a starting point.
- I think that the fourth edition of the book (from 2012) has the same unit names, so the list can be used with it.
- The list can probably be used with the 3rd and 4th editions of “English in Use – Intermediate“. That is the American version of “English Grammar in Use.”
Present and Past
Unit 2 – Present Simple (for talking about things in general, the state of the world and writing a thesis statement)
Unit 3 – Present continuous and present simple (you must understand the difference)
Unit 5 – Past simple (for personal examples)
Unit 6 – Past continuous
Present Perfect and Past
Unit 7 – Present Perfect 1 (for examples, advanced grammar)
Unit 8 – Present Perfect 2
Unit 9 – Present Perfect Continuous
Unit 10 – Present Perfect Continuous and Simple (know the difference!)
Unit 12 – For and Since
Unit 13 – Present Perfect and Past (know the difference!)
Unit 14 -Present Perfect and Past 2
Unit 15 – Past Perfect (useful for examples)
Unit 16 – Past Perfect Continuous (useful for examples)
Unit 18 – Used to (frequent errors)
Modals
Unit 33 – Should (useful for topic sentences and thesis statements)
If and Wish
Unit 40 – If I had known… (useful for “summing up” sentences)
Passive
Unit 42 – Passive 1 (it is useful to know what this is because the e-rater prefers active voice)
Reported Speech
Unit 47 – Reported Speech 1 (know how to use it as quotes look bad in the essays)
-Ing and to
Unit 53 – Verb + -ing (everything in this heading is fundamental)
Unit 54 – Verb + to…
Unit 55 – Verb (+ object)
Unit 56 – Verb +ing or to 1
Unit 57 – Verb +ing or to 2
Unit 58 – Verb +ing or to 3
Unit 59 – prefer and would rather (useful when writing a thesis statement or topic sentence)
Unit 60 – Preposition + -ing
Unit 62 – Preposition + -ing (very common error)
Articles and Nouns
Unit 69 – Countable and Uncountable 1 (very common errors)
Unit 72 – A/An and The (very common errors)
Unit 73 – The 1
Unit 74 – The 2
Pronouns and Determiners
Unit 88 – All/all of, most/most of, no/none of
Relative Clauses
Unit 92 -Relative Clauses 1
Unit 95 – Relative Clauses 4
Adjectives and Adverbs
Unit 98 – Adjective ending in -ing and -ed
Unit 101 – Adjectives and Adverbs 2
Unit 107 – Comparatives 3
Conjunctions and Prepositions
Unit 117 – Like and As
Unit 119 – During, for, while (common errors)
Prepositions
Unit 125 – In/at/on
Unit 126 – to, at, in and into
Unit 127 – in/on/at
Unit 130 – adjective + preposition 1
Unit 132 – verb + preposition 1
Unit 133 – verb + preposition 2
Unit 134 – verb + preposition 3
Unit 135 – verb + preposition 4
Phrasal Verbs
Study everything, but note that studying phrasal verbs in a grammar book has limitations.
Additional Exercises
Try numbers 1, 5, 9, 29 and 32.