Nauti Test ProIndependent guide · Marlins test, Grammar section
Grammar is the largest written section of the Marlins test for seafarers, and the one you can improve fastest: the same seven or eight points of grammar come back again and again, always inside a ship's routine — a handover, a drill, a permit to work. This guide lists them with an example from on board, shows how the word-order questions work, explains the traps our reviewers kept finding, and ends with eight practice items you can check yourself.
| Test | Grammar in the test |
|---|---|
| Seafarers | 30 questions of 85 — more than a third of the test, and more than Vocabulary, Time and numbers and Reading together. In our timed simulation that is 26 gap questions and 4 word-order questions. |
| Cruise ship staff | 19 questions of 50. Our simulation draws 15 gap questions and 4 word-order questions, set in the hotel side of the ship: the desk, the restaurant, the cabins. |
| Offshore workers | 28 questions of 85. Our simulation draws 24 gap questions and 4 word-order questions, set on rigs, cranes, supply vessels and in the camp. |
Section sizes as listed by Marlins on its About the tests page at the time of writing (October 2026); the split between gap and word-order questions is the one our simulations use, not a figure Marlins publishes. Every point counts the same in your final percentage, so a grammar point is worth exactly as much as a listening point — see how the score is read by rank.
Marlins' page lists the sections but does not describe the screens; it recommends its free practice test to get to know the question types. The two types below are the ones our grammar units reproduce, in the same order of frequency.
One short sentence from ship life with a gap, and a few options: four in our Seafarers bank, three in the Cruise and Offshore banks. You choose the words that make the sentence correct. Most options are real English forms — is checked, checks, is checking — so you cannot answer by spotting the strange one. You have to read the whole sentence.
The first and the last word are fixed; between them you place a few words or short groups of words to make one correct sentence. The fixed words are not decoration: they often decide where a time or a place phrase can go. See section 03.
In both types the context is maritime but the question is about English. You never have to know a regulation or a machine. You do not have to name the tense either: nobody asks you what "present perfect" means, only to choose it when the sentence needs it.
Seven areas cover nearly every gap question we have written for the three tests. Learn them with ship sentences, not with the sentences of a general grammar book: on the day, the sentence will be about a gangway, not about a cinema.
Checklists, notices and reports care about the job, not about who did it, so they use the passive: be + past participle. "The lifeboat engine is tested every week." "All hatches must be closed before departure." "The leak has been repaired." "The cargo was discharged by shore cranes." The usual wrong options drop be ("must closed"), use the -ing form ("is testing") or use the active when the subject is the thing, not the person.
Short adjectives take -er / -est (deeper, the heaviest); long ones take more / the most (more dangerous, the most experienced). Never both: "more heavier" is always a wrong option. Also: as … as ("not as rough as yesterday"), fewer with things you count (fewer containers), less with things you do not (less fuel).
Question forms put the auxiliary first: "Has the surveyor finished?", "Did you sign the permit?". Quantities: much with uncountable nouns (much water), many with countable ones (many crew members), a few / a little for "some". Reported speech appears now and then: "The master said that the pilot was late" — the tense moves one step back.
You get the first word, the last word and the pieces in between, mixed up. You tap them into place. In our banks every word-order question accepts one sentence (sometimes two equally correct ones), so the task is not to find a sentence that "sounds possible" but the one that uses every piece between those two fixed words.
A place phrase like in the crew galley or on the bridge can describe a person ("the cook in the crew galley") or say where the action happens ("…is preparing lunch in the crew galley"). Most candidates put it at the end by habit. But if the last word is fixed and it is not the place, the end is taken — and the place phrase has to go next to the subject. When our blind reviewers solved the word-order items, this was the commonest reason two of them built different sentences, so we rewrote those items until only one order works. Practice item 8 below shows it.
Every grammar item in our banks was solved by reviewers who did not have the answer key. Where they disagreed, we looked for the reason and fixed the item. The same reasons are where candidates lose points, so they are worth knowing.
In everyday speech the two often overlap, so a good item gives you a clue: a decision at the moment of speaking ("The phone's ringing — I'll get it") takes will; a plan made before ("We're going to change the filters tomorrow, it's on the plan") or evidence you can see ("Look at that sky — it's going to blow") takes going to. Look for the clue before you look at the options.
To offer help, international English says "Shall I close the watertight door?" or "Do you want me to…?". "Will I close it?" is a normal offer in Ireland and parts of Scotland, but for most listeners it sounds like a question about the future. If you see an offer, choose Shall I.
After a group noun — crew, department, company, laundry — British English uses singular or plural ("the engine department have finished"). Both are correct, so a fair question never depends on that difference alone: if two options differ only in has / have after a group, the answer is decided somewhere else in the sentence. Do not mark the plural as wrong.
See section 03: if the fixed last word is not the place, the place phrase usually belongs to the subject ("The officer on the bridge called…"). Use the fixed words; they are there to remove the second possible order.
Two more that cost points: a time in the sentence that you did not read (since, ago, by, at the moment decide the tense, and they are often at the end of the sentence), and the option that is correct English but means something else — don't have to where the notice needs mustn't.
Written by us in the format of the test: six gap questions and two word-order questions. Choose your answer, then open the explanation. None of them is a question from the Marlins test.
Item 1 · Tenses
The new third officer ____ on board for two weeks, so he still asks for help with the ECDIS.
b — has been. "For two weeks" is a period that has not finished: he is still on board. That needs the present perfect. "Is on board for two weeks" would describe a plan, and "was" would mean he has already left — but the sentence says he still asks for help.
Item 2 · Modals
Visitors ____ enter the engine room without permission from the duty engineer.
d — must not. The notice forbids something, so it needs "must not" (mustn't). "Don't have to" and "needn't" are correct English but mean "it is not necessary" — the opposite of a rule. "Should to" is never correct: no "to" after a modal.
Item 3 · Passive
Before every boat drill, each davit winch ____ by the bosun.
a — is checked. The winch does not check anything: someone checks it, and "by the bosun" says who. That is the passive, be + past participle. "Is checking" is active and would make the winch do the checking; "has check" is not a correct form.
Item 4 · Prepositions of time
The surveyor will finish the inspection ____ 1600, so we can sail tonight.
c — by. "By 1600" means "no later than 1600" — a deadline, which is what the second half of the sentence needs. "Until" goes with an action that continues up to a time ("will stay until 1600"); "since" needs a past starting point; "during" needs a noun such as "the morning".
Item 5 · Conditionals
If the wind ____ above 30 knots, crane operations will stop.
b — rises. First conditional: if + present simple, then will. "If the wind will rise" is a very common mistake; "would rise" and "rose" belong to the second conditional, which would need "would stop" in the other half.
Item 6 · Comparatives
This year's dry-dock was ____ than last year's: it took only nine days.
d — shorter. "Short" is a short adjective, so the comparative is "shorter". "Than" tells you it is a comparison of two, not a superlative. "More short" mixes the two ways of forming it.
Item 7 · Word order
Put the words in order to make a correct sentence.
Thebefore thealwaysthe oil levelcheckschief engineerwatch.
The chief engineer always checks the oil level before the watch. Subject first (chief engineer), then the frequency word "always" BEFORE the main verb, then the verb and its object (checks the oil level), and the time phrase at the end, which the fixed last word completes.
Item 8 · Word order
Put the words in order to make a correct sentence.
Theis preparingin the crew galleysecondcooklunch.
The second cook in the crew galley is preparing lunch. Habit puts the place at the end, but the last word is fixed: "lunch" is the object and must come right after "is preparing". So "in the crew galley" can only describe the subject — "the second cook in the crew galley". This is the place-phrase trap of section 03.
Our Seafarers bank has 538 grammar questions (word order included), plus 270 in the exam-format grammar unit and 60 single-word word-order items, each with an explanation after you answer — in English, Spanish or Portuguese. The timed simulation draws the 30 grammar points of the test with the rest of the 85.
Points in the Seafarers test. For the whole test in one place, start from the Marlins test for seafarers.
At the time of writing (October 2026), Marlins lists 30 grammar questions in the 85-question test for seafarers, 19 of 50 in the test for cruise ship staff and 28 in the test for offshore workers. Grammar is the largest written section in all three. A few of those questions ask you to put words in order instead of filling a gap.
Tenses in a shipboard context (present perfect against past simple, past continuous for an interrupted action, will and going to), modals of obligation and permission (must, mustn't, have to, don't have to, can, should), the passive of procedures, prepositions of place on a ship and of time (by, until, for, since), first and second conditionals, comparatives, and question forms. Study them one at a time with ship sentences.
The first and the last word of the sentence are fixed and the words in between are mixed up. You place them to make one correct sentence. Place the subject and the verb first, then the object right after the verb, then place and time. Use the fixed words: they often decide where a place phrase can go.
No. In British English a group noun such as crew, department or company can take a singular or a plural verb, so "the crew is" and "the crew are" are both correct. A fair question does not depend only on that difference; if two options differ only in has or have after a group noun, look for the real clue somewhere else in the sentence.
No. The test never asks you to name a tense or a rule. It asks you to choose the form the sentence needs. Knowing the names helps you keep an error list, but on the day what matters is reading the time words and the subject before you look at the options.
Grammar is the section where daily practice shows soonest, because the same points come back again and again. Two or three weeks of practice by topic, with an error list of the mistakes you repeat, is a realistic plan if your English is already around B1. But grammar is 30 of the 85 points in the seafarers test, and 34 are audio: do not prepare grammar alone.