You give up your seat to a pregnant woman; somebody else scratches their name into the seat back. Same bus, two opposite ideas of what we owe one another. Grade 11 opens with that sharp question — who is responsible for the society I live in? — and walks you through buses, school walls, vandalism, road rules and community service, handing you the English to discuss every one.
The grammar that fits stories about the past is all four past tenses seen together in one picture, so you finally stop muddling them. You will also watch how a single root word can grow several new jobs by adding a suffix — vandal → vandalism → vandalize — and you will practise the notice and informal-letter formats that turn up as Test 14.
The unit opens on a crowded bus. Vikum offers to carry Chamindu's school bag, and the two boys fall into an easy conversation about a debate they must prepare — "Discipline cannot be achieved only through laws." Chamindu mentions that his sister has collected articles on the topic, and among them is one on a word Vikum has never heard before: vandalism. Chamindu sounds it out for him, syllable by syllable — "Van-da-lism" — and the two agree to read the articles together at school. Then, without being asked, Vikum sees a pregnant mother board the bus and gives up his seat.
Notice how the whole conversation is the lesson, acted out. Vikum offers to carry a bag, the boys debate whether laws alone can make people behave, and at the very end Vikum stands up for a pregnant woman unprompted. That last line answers the unit's big question quietly: responsibility isn't something the law forces on you — it's the small decent thing you do when nobody is watching. Hold that idea; it is the heart of the civic writing this unit leads towards.
The reading passage is built in three clean moves: paragraph one says what vandalism is, paragraph two why it happens, paragraph three how much it costs us. Vandalism is defined as an offence caused when a person deliberately destroys, alters or defaces someone else's property without permission — aimed mostly at public property such as buses, bus stops, parks and road signs, though it can happen at an individual level too, like scratching a car or defacing someone's website.
The causes are not the obvious ones. Personal attitudes and basic social problems sit at the root of vandalism — a lack of meaningful activities, disciplinary problems, and negative feelings such as revenge, boredom, anger and frustration. It can equally come from peer-group pressure, playfulness, curiosity and the simple pleasure of doing it. Most vandals, the passage says, have no clear motive at all, and may see their acts as fun or even art. That does not excuse it: it remains a punishable crime, carrying imprisonment, a monetary fine, or both, because every country makes laws to prevent it. The final line lands the point simply — it is "a problem that affects everyone in some way or other."
This passage is a model for explaining any social issue in an essay. Define the word first, then dig into the real causes rather than the obvious ones, then name the consequence. Borrow this what → why → so-what order for any civic topic, and your argument will never wander.
Imagine a single afternoon yesterday. The four past tenses are simply four camera angles on it. Past simple snaps a finished moment — "the postman delivered the letter." Past continuous films an action mid-flow — "I was waiting when he delivered it." Past perfect rewinds to something that finished even earlier — "my father had visited the library a week before." And past perfect continuous shows an action that had been rolling on up to that earlier point — "he had been waiting a long time to get those books." Same afternoon, four lenses.
Once you see them as one family rather than four separate rules, choosing gets easy: ask finished or going on? and at the main time, or before it? Those two questions land you on the right tense every time.
| Tense | Form | Use |
|---|---|---|
| Past simple | V2 (delivered) | a single past action, finished at a point |
| Past continuous | was/were + V-ing | an action going on at a point in the past |
| Past perfect | had + V3 | a past action finished before another past action |
| Past perfect continuous | had been + V-ing | an action that started earlier and went on up to a past point |
The trap is over-using the past perfect. It only earns its place when there are two past events and you need to show which came first. With a single event, the plain past simple is right — "I went to school" needs no "had".
A root word is like a seed, and a suffix is the soil that decides what it grows into. Take "vandal" (a person): add -ism and it becomes the idea (vandalism, a noun); add -ize and it becomes the action (vandalize, a verb); add -istic and it becomes a describing word (vandalistic, an adjective). The meaning stays in the family; the suffix just changes the job it does in a sentence.
This matters for the exam because Test 9 hands you a root and a gap, and the shape of the gap tells you which suffix it needs. If the sentence wants a thing, reach for the noun ending; if it wants something done, reach for the verb ending.
| Root | + -ism (noun) | + -ize (verb) | + -istic (adj) |
|---|---|---|---|
| vandal | vandalism | vandalize | vandalistic |
| critic | criticism | criticize | — |
| terror | terrorism | terrorize | — |
| real | realism | realize | realistic |
Other word-class swaps the paper loves to test: -ity makes a noun — safe → safety, cruel → cruelty, responsible → responsibility. -ance / -ence makes a noun — attend → attendance, differ → difference. -able makes an adjective — respect → respectable, enjoy → enjoyable. -ize makes a verb — modern → modernize, organ → organize.
These words carry the unit's argument — the problem, the people who cause it, and the qualities of the citizen who does not.
| Category | Words |
|---|---|
| The problem | vandalism, graffiti, litter, pollution, curfew, punishable crime |
| Consequences | imprisonment, monetary fine |
| The good citizen | responsible citizen, community service, public property, respect, discipline, awareness, law-abiding, punctual |
An informal letter to a friend is warm and chatty, but it still has anchors the examiner checks off. Farah's model letter (page 9) lays out the shape: address top-right (3 lines), the date, an informal greeting ("Dear Kalani,"), a thank-you that opens the conversation, one paragraph of school news, one paragraph of family news, and a closing wish before the sign-off ("Love, Farah."). The clever part is that it quietly shows off the unit's grammar — "I was waiting for a letter when the postman delivered it" puts past continuous and past simple in one natural sentence. Keep the tone like talking to a real friend, but never drop the required pieces.
| Informal letter — the 7 pieces |
|---|
| 1. Address top-right (3 lines) · 2. Date · 3. "Dear …," · 4. Thanks / opening news · 5. Main update · 6. News of family / question · 7. "Love, [name]" |
A notice has one job: give every fact a reader needs in as few words as possible. Test it against the five W's — what, who, when, where, and the practical extras. The model notice for a "Clean Our Lane" community day gives the heading in capitals, the date and time (Saturday 6th March 2027, 8.00 a.m.), what to bring, and a signature naming both the writer and the role that gives them authority to call it — "Tharindu Silva, Secretary." There is no waffle, no story — lean and complete beats long every time.
| Task | Official word count |
|---|---|
| Notice (Test 6/9) | 40–50 words |
| Short paragraph (Test 8) | 50–60 words |
| Informal letter (Test 14) | ~100 words — 3 paragraphs |
The four past tenses are a Test 12 fixture every single year, and word-class suffixes anchor Test 9. The notice and informal letter are common Test 14 tasks, and "public property" / civic-responsibility topics come round regularly in the essay and article questions. This opening unit quietly feeds a large share of the paper.
| Past-paper test | What was tested |
|---|---|
| 2015 Test 9 | Notice rewriting (drama practices begin / parents' letters of permission) |
| 2017 Test 9 | Word-form fill-in (manage / participate / invent / compete) |
| 2018 Test 9 | Match instructions to places (library / hospital / bus) |
| 2019 Test 14 (a) | Letter on Teachers' Day — informal letter shape |
| 2018 Test 16 (a) | Article on 'Public property belongs to all of us' — direct unit topic |
| Test 12 every year | Verb-form passage testing all four past tenses |