SOME TIPS FOR USING PREPOSITIONS IN TOEIC TESTS (Ms Gam)

A preposition is a word or group of words used before a noun, pronoun, or noun phrase to show direction, time, place, location, spatial relationships, or to introduce an object. Some examples of prepositions are words like "in," "at," "on," "of," and "to.". In TOEIC tests, prepositions appear quite frequently. The following are some tips for using common prepositions in TOEIC tests.

I. PREPOSITION OF PLACE:     AT, IN, ON

In general, we use:

• AT for a POINT
• IN for an ENCLOSED SPACE.
• ON for a SURFACE

AT	IN	ON
At the corner	In the garden	On the wall
At the bus stop	In London	On the ceiling
At the door	In France	On the door
At the top of the page	In a box	On the second floor
At the end of the road	In my pocket	On a page
At the entrance	In a building	On the carpet
At the crossroads	In a car	On the menu

 

Some other expressions:

AT	IN	ON
At home	In a car	On a bus
At work	In a taxi	On a train
At school	In a helicopter	On a plane
At university	In a boat	On a ship
At college	In a lift (elevator)	On a bicycle, on a motorbike
At the top	In the newspaper	On a horse, on an elephant
At the bottom	In the sky	On the radio, on television
At the side	In a row	On the left, on the right
At reception	In the Street	On the way

 

*** Other prepositions of place: under, over, between, among, in front of, behind, next to, near, below, above, opposite.

 

II. PREPOSITION OF TIME: AT , IN, ON

We use:

• AT for a PRECISE TIME
• IN for MONTHS, YEARS, CENTURIES, and LONG PERIODS
• ON for DAYS and DATES.

AT	IN	ON
At 3 o’clock	In May-month	On Sunday (morning)
At 10.30 am	In summer-season	On Tuesdays
At noon	In the summer	On 6 March
At dinnertime	In 1991-year	On 25 Dec, 2002
At bedtime	In the 1990s -decade	On Christmas Day
At sunrise	In the next century	On Independence Day
At sunset	In the Ice Age	On my birthday
At the moment	In the past/ future	On New Year’s Eve

 

Some other expressions:

AT	IN	ON
At night	In the morning(s)	On Tuesday morning
At the weekend	In the afternoon(s)	On Saturday mornings
At Christmas/ Easter	In the evening(s)	On Sunday afternoons
At the same time		On Monday evening
At present

 

NOTE: When we say last, next, every, this ; we do not use AT, ON, IN.

• I went to London last June (not in last June).
• He’s coming back next Tuesday (not on next Tuesday)

**** Other prepositions of time:  since, until/till, by, from....to/ until

• I haven’t seen you since last weekend.
• We have been waiting for them for 2 hours.
• She will stay until they come back.

III. PREPOSITIONS OF MOVEMENT

• TO: à To show where we go:  I go to school everyday.
• TOWARDS: à We are going in that direction.  She walked towards the man to get his name.
• FROM: à the point where we start.  She walks home from school everyday.
• ROUND/ AROUND: à circular movement.  Linh ran around the tree.
• BETWEEN: à describe a route. That train travels between Ha Noi and HCMC.
• INTO: à go from outside to a place inside. The frog jumped into the water from a tree.
• OUT OF: à opposite of INTO.  She walked out of the classroom.
• ON/ ONTO: à movement starting from below and ending on the top of something. He jumped onto my chair
• OFF: à opposite of ON/ ONTO.  Hong was sleeping and fell off the chair.
• UP/ DOWN                           He ran up and down the stairs because he was in a hurry.

IV. ADJ + PREP

OF	WITH	AT/ BY	ABOUT	AT	FOR	TO
Nice, kind, good, generous, stupid, silly, intelligent, sensible, (im)possible, rude, afraid, frightened, scared, jealous, envious, suspicious, proud, ashamed, aware, conscious, fond	Angry, delighted, pleased, satisfied, disappointed, bored, fed up Crowded	Amazed, shocked, surprised, astonished	Excited, worried, upset, sorry, crazy	Good, bad, excellent brilliant	Sorry, Famous, Responsible	Nice, kind, good, polite, rude, friendly, married, engaged