Advanced Grammar Style
The final layer of mastery: choosing structures for register, flow, and elegance — so your English is not just correct, but controlled, cohesive, and stylish.
Choose a pillar. A context.
Five pillars of style, three contexts — 15 hand-built sentences. Watch register, flow, and balance turn a correct sentence into an elegant one.
Got the pattern? Jump to the practice →
The rules — with examples
No new grammar here — only the choices among correct options that make writing read as controlled, cohesive, and polished.
The three big dials
don’t → do not (formal prose)
She gave the committee a detailed account.
It could be argued that the policy failed.
Consistency beats formality. One chatty contraction in a formal report — “the policy didn’t work and it’s a big problem” — breaks the register of the whole page. Pick the level, then hold it.
Three habits of polished writers
Flat vs. polished — side by side
End-weight in one move: a heavy clause makes a clumsy subject. “That nobody noticed the error for weeks was surprising” → “It was surprising that nobody noticed the error for weeks.” Dummy it up front, weight at the end.
Register swaps — phrasal to formal
Formal is not always better. In conversation, the phrasal verb is the natural choice — “We’ll find out” beats “We shall ascertain” at the dinner table. The C2 skill is switching deliberately, not maximizing formality.
The certainty dial — hedges and boosters
Practice & score yourself
Ten questions — five multiple choice, five gap-fill. Instant scoring and a short explanation for every answer.
The one rule to remember
At C2, every correct sentence still poses a choice. Before you settle, ask: does this fit the register, does the new information land at the end, and have I avoided needless repetition? Style is simply correctness made deliberate.