Nostalgia (noun)
longing for the past — अतीत की याद
“Old school songs fill me with nostalgia.”
25+ Years Teaching
30+ Books Authored
1000s of Students Guided
Fast rules, memory tricks & common traps for PGT · TGT · KVS · LT · UGC-NET English — Grammar, Vocabulary & Literature, सब एक जगह.
Roz ek naya word, idiom, literature fact, grammar tip & Question of the Day — bilkul free. Daily 5 minute, exam tak बड़ा फ़र्क़. 🔖 Bookmark this page!
longing for the past — अतीत की याद
“Old school songs fill me with nostalgia.”
to make a fresh start — नया रास्ता अपनाना
Jane Austen wrote "Pride and Prejudice" (1813), famous for its witty opening line.
In passive voice the tense lives in the "be" verb + V3: is written, was written, has been written.
Choose the ONE WORD for: "one who studies stars and planets scientifically" (खगोलशास्त्री)
Answer: B. Astronomer
"Astronomer" (खगोलशास्त्री) studies celestial bodies scientifically. An "astrologer" predicts using stars (not science); an "astronaut" travels in space.
Practice the full “One-Word Substitution (एक शब्द)” test →💡 Trick: Spot the signal word → it tells you the tense. (हिन्दी: संकेत शब्द देखकर tense पहचानो।)
| Tense | Structure | Signal words |
|---|---|---|
| Simple Present | V1 / V-s | always, usually, every day |
| Present Continuous | is/am/are + V-ing | now, at the moment, look! |
| Present Perfect | has/have + V3 | just, already, yet, ever, since, for |
| Present Perfect Cont. | has/have been + V-ing | since, for (still going on) |
| Simple Past | V2 | yesterday, ago, last, in 1990 |
| Past Continuous | was/were + V-ing | while, when, at 5 pm yesterday |
| Past Perfect | had + V3 | before, after, by the time (earlier action) |
| Past Perfect Cont. | had been + V-ing | for / since + past point |
| Simple Future | will + V1 | tomorrow, next, soon |
| Future Continuous | will be + V-ing | at this time tomorrow |
| Future Perfect | will have + V3 | by + future time |
| Future Perfect Cont. | will have been + V-ing | by ... for + duration |
⚠️ Trap: Of two past actions, the earlier one takes Past Perfect (had + V3). Stative verbs (know, love, believe) are not used in continuous.
💡 Rule: Object becomes subject + correct form of be + V3 + by + agent. The tense lives in the “be” verb.
| Active tense | Passive (be + V3) |
|---|---|
| Simple Present | is / am / are + V3 |
| Present Continuous | is / am / are being + V3 |
| Present Perfect | has / have been + V3 |
| Simple Past | was / were + V3 |
| Past Continuous | was / were being + V3 |
| Past Perfect | had been + V3 |
| Simple Future | will be + V3 |
| Future Perfect | will have been + V3 |
| Modals (can/must/should) | modal + be + V3 |
⚠️ Perfect-continuous & future-continuous tenses are normally not made passive.
💡 If the reporting verb is past, the tense moves one step back. (reporting verb past हो तो tense एक कदम पीछे।)
Reporting verb: said to → told; question → asked (+ if/whether for Yes-No); order → ordered/told … to; request → requested; advice → advised. Universal truths do not back-shift.
| call off | cancel | put off | postpone |
| look after | take care of | look into | investigate |
| give up | quit | give in | surrender |
| break down | stop working | break out | start suddenly |
| bring up | raise (child/topic) | carry out | execute |
| come across | find by chance | get over | recover from |
| put up with | tolerate | turn down | reject / lower |
| run out of | exhaust supply | take after | resemble |
More practice: Antonyms · Synonyms · Idioms · Translation
| Age / Period | Key writers & works |
|---|---|
| Old English / Anglo-Saxon (450–1066) | Beowulf (epic) |
| Middle English (1066–1500) | Chaucer — The Canterbury Tales |
| Renaissance / Elizabethan (1500–1660) | Shakespeare, Marlowe, Spenser |
| Puritan / Restoration (1660–1700) | Milton — Paradise Lost; Dryden |
| Neoclassical / Augustan (1700–1745) | Pope, Swift, Addison |
| Romantic (1798–1837) | Wordsworth & Coleridge — Lyrical Ballads (1798); Keats, Shelley, Byron |
| Victorian (1837–1901) | Tennyson, Browning, Dickens, Hardy |
| Modern (1901–1939) | T. S. Eliot, Yeats, Joyce, Woolf |
💡 “Father of …”: Poetry → Chaucer · English Novel → Henry Fielding (Defoe also credited) · Essay → Francis Bacon · English Criticism → John Dryden · Dictionary → Dr Samuel Johnson · Blank Verse → Earl of Surrey. “Bard of Avon” = Shakespeare; “Poet’s Poet” = Spenser.
| Author | Famous work / fact |
|---|---|
| R. K. Narayan | The Guide, Malgudi Days (fictional Malgudi) |
| Mulk Raj Anand | Untouchable, Coolie |
| Raja Rao | Kanthapura |
| Rabindranath Tagore | Gitanjali — Nobel Prize 1913 |
| Sarojini Naidu | “The Nightingale of India” |
| Salman Rushdie | Midnight’s Children (Booker 1981) |
| Arundhati Roy | The God of Small Things (Booker 1997) |
| Aravind Adiga | The White Tiger (Booker 2008) |
| Jhumpa Lahiri | Interpreter of Maladies (Pulitzer 2000) |
| Girish Karnad | Tughlaq (drama) |
| Critic | Landmark work / idea |
|---|---|
| Aristotle | Poetics — catharsis, mimesis, hamartia |
| Longinus | On the Sublime |
| Philip Sidney | An Apology for Poetry |
| John Dryden | Of Dramatic Poesie (“Father of English Criticism”) |
| Wordsworth | Preface to Lyrical Ballads |
| Coleridge | Biographia Literaria |
| Matthew Arnold | “Touchstone” method |
| T. S. Eliot | Tradition and the Individual Talent — “objective correlative” |
Ready? Put it to the test → 24 free practice tests.
Compiled by Dr Pankaj Tiwari · English Lecturer & Author · for PGT/TGT/KVS/LT/UGC-NET aspirants. Save this page (Print → PDF) for quick revision before the exam.