INSTRUCTIONS
- Read each sentence to find out whether there is any error in it.
- The error, if any, will be in one or more sentences.
- Then choose the sentence(s) without error as your answer.
- If there is an error in all the sentences, then your answer choice is E. (Ignore the punctuation errors, if any.)
GIVEN SENTENCE
I. I asked my guest to make himself comfortable and tell me more about him.
II. The ruling party is not so much worried about the rising unemployment in the country.
III. Despite working hard like a donkey, I failed to complete the job on time.
IV. It is natural for anyone to sympathize to people who are homeless and penniless.
IDENTIFYING ERRORS
I. I asked my guest to make himself comfortable and tell me more about him.
II. The ruling party is not so much worried about the rising unemployment in the country.
III. Despite working like a donkey all day, I failed to complete the job on time.
IV. It is natural for anyone to sympathize to people who are homeless and penniless.
CORRECT SENTENCES
I. I asked my guest to make himself comfortable and tell me more about himself.
II. The ruling party is not very much worried about the rising unemployment in the country.
III. Despite working hard like a donkey, I failed to complete the job on time.
IV. It is natural for anyone to sympathize with people who are homeless and penniless.
EXPLANATION
1. When the subject and the object refer to the same person, use reflexive pronouns.
2.‘So’ should not be used absolutely, but only with a correlative.
3. There is no error in the sentence, including the usage of ‘like’ and ‘hard’.
4. ‘Sympathize to’ is a wrong idiomatic expression, ‘sympathize for’ is correct.
GIVEN SENTENCES
I. The coach can not devise an effective strategy until he knows whom the opponents are.
II. The creative and innovative university was founded by the great nationalist leader Pandit Madan Mohan Malviya in 1916.
III. The painting, sold by Christie's for a million dollars, was painted by Ravi Varma by just a brush and natural colours.
IV. Neither the ministers nor the chief minister are willing to dissolve the assembly.
IDENTIFYING ERRORS
I. The coach can not devise an effective strategy until he knows whom the opponents are.
II. The creative and innovative university was founded by the great nationalist leader Pandit Madan Mohan Malviya in 1916.
III. The painting, sold by Christie's for a million dollars, was painted by Ravi Varma by just brush and natural colours.
IV. Neither the ministers nor the chief minister are willing to dissolve the assembly.
CORRECT SENTENCES
I. The coach can not devise an effective strategy until he knows who the opponents are.
II. The creative and innovative university was founded by the great nationalist leader Pandit Madan Mohan Malviya in 1916.
III. The painting, sold by Christie's for a million dollars, was painted by Ravi Varma with just a brush and natural colours.
IV. Neither the ministers nor the chief minister is willing to dissolve the assembly.
EXPLANATION
I. The relative pronoun ‘whom’ refers to an object whereas the relative pronoun ‘who’ refers to a subject. Hence, we must replace ‘whom’ with who’ to correct the error.
II. There is no error in the given sentence, including the usage of modifiers, pronouns, verbal forms and tenses.
III. In this passive voice sentence, using ‘by’ before the doer of the action, Ravi Varma is correct. But, using ‘by’ before the tool, brush, is incorrect. ‘With’ is the appropriate preposition here.
IV. When ‘neither... nor’ connects two subjects, whatever follows ‘nor’ is the subject of the sentence. In the given sentence, the subject is ‘chief minister’, which is singular, and hence ‘are’ is to be replaced with ‘is’.
GIVEN SENTENCES
I. The International Astronomical Union, in 2006, had designated Pluto a ‘dwarf planet’ along with Xena, an object in the Kuiper belt.
II. The long conversation with the psychologist had a more profound affect on him than he had ever imagined.
III. Some of the strict measures taken by the principal have proved highly beneficial to the students.
IV. The Finance Minister said that bowing to public demand, I had reduced the GST rates on more than 100 items.
IDENTIFYING ERRORS
I. The International Astronomical Union, in 2006, had designated Pluto a ‘dwarf planet’ along with Xena, an object in the Kuiper belt.
II. The long conversation with the psychologist had a more profound affect on him than he had ever imagined.
III. Some of the strict measures taken by the principal have proved highly beneficial to the students.
IV. The Finance Minister said that bowing to public demand, I had reduced the GST rates on more than 100 items.
CORRECT SENTENCES
I. The International Astronomical Union, in 2006, had designated Pluto a ‘dwarf planet’ along with Xena, an object in the Kuiper belt.
II. The long conversation with the psychologist had a more profound effect on him than he had ever imagined.
III. Some of the strict measures taken by the principal have proved highly beneficial to the students.
IV. The Finance Minister said that bowing to public demand, he had reduced the GST rates on more than 100 items.
EXPLANATION
I. The action mentioned in the sentence occurred in the past and the time of the action is also mentioned. Hence, we must use simple past tense rather than the past perfect tense.
II. Their error in the given sentences is very subtle. ‘Affect’ is a verb and ‘effect’ is a noun. The sentence requires the usage of a noun, not a verb.
III. There is no error in the given sentence including the subject-verb agreement, tense, modifiers and prepositions.
IV. The sentence is in reported or indirect speech, not in direct speech. Hence using the past perfect tense is justified. But using the pronoun ‘I’ is wrong and it must be changed to ‘he’ to rectify the error.
GIVEN SENTENCES
I. The new CEO rescued the company from bankruptcy and latter spun off its textile division into a separate company.
II. The number of people in the USA without health insurance have grown steadily since the mid-1990s.
III. Do you really think that they will except our plan without an argument?
IV. The objective of the scheme is to provide demand-driven, placement oriented skilling programme to incentive the efforts of the industry in creating jobs in the organized textile and related sectors.
IDENTIFYING ERRORS
I. The new CEO rescued the company from bankruptcy and latter spun off its textile division into a separate company.
II. The number of people in the USA without health insurance have grown steadily since the mid-1990 s.
III. Do you really think that they will except our plan without an argument?
IV. The objective of the scheme is to provide demand-driven, placement oriented skilling programme to incentive the efforts of the industry in creating jobs in the organized textile and related sectors.
CORRECT SENTENCES
I. The new CEO rescued the company from bankruptcy and later spun off its textile division into a separate company.
II. The number of people in the USA without health insurance has grown steadily since the mid-1990s.
III. Do you really think that they will accept our plan without an argument?
IV. The objective of the scheme is to provide demand-driven, placement oriented skilling programme to incentivize the efforts of the industry in creating jobs in the organized textile and related sectors.
EXPLANATION
I. We must use ‘later’ to refer to time and ‘latter’ to refer to the second of the two persons or things mentioned previously. ‘Latter’ in the given sentence must be replaced with ‘later’.
II. ‘The number’ is always singular and the verb that follows it must conform to its singularity. On the other hand, ‘a number’ is always plural.
III. There is a massive difference between ‘except’, a preposition or a verb that means ‘other than’ or ‘leave out’, and ‘accept’, a verb that means ‘to agree’. The correct word in the given context is ‘accept’.
IV. Instead of using the verbal form ‘incentivize’ after ‘to’, the given sentence incorrectly uses the noun form ‘incentive’.
GIVEN SENTENCES
I. Taking aspirin daily does not reduce the chance of heart attack or stroke and have no benefits in prolonging life free of disability.
II. Russia accused Israel of indirectly causing a Russian military plane to shot down near Syria's Mediterranean coast, and threatened to retaliate.
III. A complacent India survived a mightily scare before recording an unimpressive 26-run win over minnows Hong Kong.
IV. This is the first time neighbouring Nepal, Bangladesh and Bhutan are being
roped up for the census because they constitute a larger tiger range in the Indian subcontinent.
IDENTIFYING ERRORS
I. Taking aspirin daily does not reduce the chance of heart attack or stroke and have no benefits in prolonging life free of disability.
II. Russia accused Israel of indirectly causing a Russian military plane to shot down near Syria's Mediterranean coast, and threatened to retaliate.
I. A complacent India survived a mightily scare before recording an unimpressive 26-run win over minnows Hong Kong.
II. This is the first time neighbouring Nepal, Bangladesh and Bhutan are being roped up for the census because they constitute a larger tiger range in the Indian subcontinent.
CORRECT SENTENCES
I. Taking aspirin daily does not reduce the chance of heart attack or stroke and has no benefit in prolonging life free of disability.
II. Russia accused Israel of indirectly causing a Russian military plane to be shot down near Syria's Mediterranean coast, and threatened to retaliate.
III. A complacent India survived a mighty scare before recording an unimpressive 26-run win over minnows Hong Kong.
IV. This is the first time neighbouring Nepal, Bangladesh and Bhutan are being roped in for the census because they constitute a larger tiger range in the Indian subcontinent.
EXPLANATION
I. The gerund ‘taking’ is the subject of the sentence. It is singular and hence using ‘have’ is wrong. Moreover, only one benefit is mentioned, not multiple ones.
II. Russia accused Israel of ‘causing something to be done’. But the sentence doesn’t convey the intended meaning. Using ‘to be shot down’ corrects the error.
III. ‘Scare’ is a noun and can be modified only by an adjective. But the sentence wrongly uses the adverb ‘mightily’ instead of the adjective ‘mighty’.
IV. The phrasal verb ‘rope up’ means ‘to tie people together with ropes’, which doesn’t make sense in the given context. ‘Rope in’, which means ‘to take the help of’ or ‘to involve’, should replace ‘rope up’.