How to solve ‘Sentence Correction’ questions in English language section

English Language section in any banking & SSC exam is a high scoring section. Not only this, you can score more marks, in lesser time. Hence, this helps you to increase your overall score. Sentence Correction tests your English grammar and usage of words.

Banking exams viz. IBPS, SBI & RBI and SSC exams feature 5-10 questions based on Sentence Correction.

Topics tested in Sentence Correction

First of all, let’s glance through the topics evaluated in Sentence Correction.

1. Subject-Verb Agreement
2. Usage of Pronouns
3. Tenses, Modifiers and Prepositions
4. Spellings and word usage

Sentence Correction questions are framed in such a way that a part of the sentence is incorrect; you have to identify the error and find the correct substitute from the given options.

You need to check if the given sentence satisfies the following parameters. For instance-

1. Is the subject and the verb in accordance with each other?
2. Is the usage of tense correct?
3. Are the spellings correct?
4. Is the parallelism in the given sentence correct?

Strategy to ace Sentence Correction questions

Moving further, let’s learn some important tips to tame questions based on Sentence Correction.

1. Subject-Verb Agreement: 

(i) A singular subject takes a singular verb and plural subject takes a plural verb.

(ii) If the subject is a ‘Collective noun’, then the verb will be in singular form.

For instance:

• The girl eats fruits. (‘Girl’ being singular takes singular verb ‘eats’)

Note:  Collective nouns – Cattle, poultry, police take a plural verb.

(iii) If the subjects are joined by ‘AND’; they take a plural verb, whereas ‘OR’ takes a singular verb.

For instance:

• Fire and water are opposite to each other. (‘AND’ takes a plural verb)
• The dog or the puppy is in the park. (‘OR’ takes a singular verb)

(vi)  Each, Everyone and Anyone will have a singular verb.

2. Usage of Pronouns- ‘I’ and ‘Me’: To make things easier for you, remember, we use ‘I’ as the subject, and ‘me’ as the object in a sentence. Generally, ‘I’ comes before the verb and ‘me’ comes after it.

For instance:

1. a) John and I joined the guitar class. (‘I’ is the subject here. Also ‘I’ is before the verb ‘joined’)
2. b) John took Jimmy and me to the mall. (‘Me’ is used as an object here and it placed before the verb ‘took’)
3. Usage of NEITHER…NOR and EITHER…OR 

• When both the subjects are singular, they take a singular verb.
• When one of the subjects is singular and other one being plural, the verb is in accordance with the subject closest to it.

For instance:

Neither the brother nor the sister is in the park. (‘Brother’ and ‘sister’ are singular, hence singular verb)

Neither the teacher nor the instructors are in the class. (‘Instructors’ is plural hence plural verb)

4. Parallelism

For instance:

• She likes to cook, read and sing.
• She likes cooking, reading and singing.

5. Spellings and word usage

There are 1-2 questions which test your spelling and vocabulary skills. Go through the words that have similar meaning but different usage. Often, bank & SSC exams feature questions based on confusing words.

For instance:

‘Few’ and ‘A few’

‘Few’ signifies something negligible. ‘A few’ refers to small quantity.

We hope this article proved useful in developing conceptual clarity. Practice and strengthen your concepts with CL’s English Language tests or free test available on our blog. You may also like to read our blog on:

Strategies to ace English language section in Bank exams .

Keep Practicing!

All the best