The Pitfalls of the TOLES Foundation Exam

Whether you’re taking the TOLES Foundation course or preparing for the exam on your own, you’ve likely looked over a sample paper, which consists of ten sections.

In this post, I’d like to discuss Section 2. While it isn’t inherently the most difficult part of the test, it can still pose a challenge for many students. The section consists of five multiple-choice questions; each one includes an error. The task is to identify ONE word in the sentence which is not correct, so you have to change, replace or delete it. An error can be either grammatical or terminological one (e.g. a wrong collocation).

First, let’s take a look at grammar. Can you guess which word is a wrong one in this sentence?

The claimant presented bank statements as an evidence that the defendant failed to fulfill their financial obligations.

One of the common mistakes that students make is trying to identify complex grammar issues (e.g. incorrect verb forms), when usually an error (if it’s a grammar one) is way more straightforward. In the sentence above, and that is a typical error you have to look for, the wrong word is an article “an”, which shouldn’t be there at all because “evidence” is an uncountable noun, so it can be “evidence” without any articles, or “the evidence”, or "a piece of evidence" in a sentence, but never “an evidence”.

As for terminological errors, they are usually wrong collocations, or legal terms used in the incorrect context.

Take a look at this sentence.

We have to write a contract that clearly sets forth our intellectual property rights.

Let’s say you’ve already revised the grammar and everything is correct, so that leaves us with a terminological error. You might start second-guessing such terms as “to set forth” or “intellectual property rights,” completely overlooking the real culprit: the word “write”.

This is a classic example of an incorrect legal collocation. In the legal English, the contracts are drafted, not written. Using the wrong collocation won’t just sound unnatural; it can undermine your professional credibility.

If you want to know more about legal vocabulary or prepare for the TOLES Foundation exam, join our TOLES Foundation course.

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