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Professional and Subprofessional · Civil Service Exam

Grammar and error recognition

Error recognition prints a sentence in lettered segments and asks which segment is wrong - or whether none of them is.

Subject-verb agreement produces most of these items, and most of those turn on a phrase sitting between the subject and its verb. `One of the machines are faulty` reads acceptably because `machines` is next to the verb, but the subject is `one`.

Learn the small set of structures that cause the trouble: `one of the`, `together with`, `in addition to`, `a number of` against `the number of`, and sums of money or periods of time, which take a singular verb however large they are.

The `no error` option is genuine and appears often enough to be worth trusting. Choosing an error you cannot name is how a correct sentence gets marked wrong.

Worked examples

Try these, then read why.

Written for this platform and generated from the same bank the practice sets draw on. Every wrong option is explained, because knowing why a distractor was tempting is most of the learning.

Choose the lettered segment that is not acceptable in formal written English. Choose E if the sentence contains no error.

(A) under the new guidelines (B) last Friday (C) One hundred fifty pesos (D) require approval.
  1. Aunder the new guidelines
  2. Blast Friday
  3. COne hundred fifty pesos
  4. Drequire approval (correct)
  5. ENo error

A sum of money treated as one amount takes a singular verb. The subject requires a singular verb, so "require" should be "requires". Find the subject first, then check the verb against it. The noun nearest the verb is often not the subject.

  • A This phrase is grammatically acceptable and does not affect the agreement.
  • B This phrase is grammatically acceptable and does not affect the agreement.
  • C The subject itself is written correctly; look at the verb that agrees with it.
  • E The sentence does contain an error, so this is not correct.

Choose the sentence that is written correctly.

  1. AThe clerk is responsible for receiving documents, verification of entries, and filing records.
  2. BThe clerk is responsible for receiving documents, verifying entries, and to file records.
  3. CThe clerk is responsible for receiving documents, verifying entries, and filing records. (correct)
  4. DThe clerk is responsible for receipt of documents, verifying entries, and to file records.

Items in a series must take the same grammatical form. The correct version is: The clerk is responsible for receiving documents, verifying entries, and filing records. Read each option to the end. Sentence faults usually sit in the part learners skim.

  • A This version breaks the rule through broken parallelism.
  • B This version breaks the rule through broken parallelism.
  • D This version breaks the rule through broken parallelism.

Practise this properly.

Three examples show you the format. Finding out whether grammar and error recognition is actually costing you marks takes a measured set, which is what the free diagnostic is for.

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