SPOTTING ERRORS (GENERAL ENGLISH)

Total Questions: 55

31. Identify the sentence with an error in idiom usage or syntax.

Correct Answer: (c) more than
Solution:Option (c) is correct, because it is redundant and there is no use of it. The word ‘exceed’ is enough to convey that the short story should not have more than 200 words.

32. Identify the sentence with an error in idiom usage or syntax.

Correct Answer: (a) If one reads the newspaper regularly
Solution:

If you read …..
The indefinite pronoun ‘one’ or the personal pronoun ‘you’ should be used throughout the sentence.

33. Identify the sentence with an error in idiom usage or syntax.

Correct Answer: (b) why had she not gone to the school
Solution:why she had not gone…
As per the rules of syntax, the subject comes before the verb and not after.

34. Identify the sentence with an error in idiom usage or syntax.

Correct Answer: (a) In tropical climate, it is necessary
Solution:

In a tropical climate….
The article ‘a’ used as “tropical climate” here is being used generically. One should either say “a tropical climate” or “tropical climates”.

35. Identify the sentence with an error in idiom usage or syntax.

Correct Answer: (a) Pollution effects more people
Solution:Pollution affects
The verb affects is to be used here which means “to produce an effect on’

36. In each of these questions, a sentence has been divided into four parts and marked a. b, c and d. One of these parts contains a mistake in Grammar, Idiom or Syntax. Identify that part and mark it as the answer.

Identify the sentence with an error in idiom usage or syntax.

Correct Answer: (d) and me
Solution:

and I’.
When a noun (or pronoun) is used as the Subject of a verb, it is said to be in the Nominative Case and when it is used as the Object of a verb, it is said to be in the Objective (or Accusative) case. In the sentence given, the staff and the person speaking form the subject of the verb ‘were’ and hence the Nominative Case of the First Person-Singular i.e. ‘I’ should be used instead of the Accusative Case i.e. ‘me’.
Note- To find the Nominative Case put Who? or What? before the verb.
To find the Accusative Case put whom? or What? Before the verb and its subject. For e.g. Hari broke the window. (Object). The window was broken. (Subject)
The Nominative generally comes before the verb and the Accusative after the verb. Hence they are distinguished by the order of words, or by the sense.

37. Identify the sentence with an error in idiom usage or syntax.

Correct Answer: (b) any boy in the class because
Solution:

than any other boy in the class.
When a comparison is instituted by means of a Comparative followed by ‘than’, the thing compared must be always excluded from the class of things with which it is compared, by using ‘other’ or some such words.

38. Identify the sentence with an error in idiom usage or syntax.

Correct Answer: (a) There is only the banana
Solution:

a banana
The reference here is to one banana and not a particular one.

39. Identify the sentence with an error in idiom usage or syntax.

Correct Answer: (a) Like his brother who did not wear his helmet
Solution:

Unlike his brother
The adverb unlike is to be used here as logical reasoning suggests.

40. Identify the sentence with an error in idiom usage or syntax.

Correct Answer: (d) than us
Solution:

than we had been
The past perfect tense ‘had been’ is used here to denote an action completed before a certain moment in the past.