Identifying common sentence errors for sentence correction tests

Identifying common sentence errors for sentence correction tests

Questions on Sentence Correction gauge the test-taker’s ability to identify different sentence errors including grammatical, spelling and punctuation errors. Although named Sentence Correction, most often, questions in this topic require one to only identify sentence errors.


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Structure of Sentence Correction Questions

Sentence Correction questions are structured in the following manner.

  1. Questions containing a single sentence are separated into four fragments. The fragment containing the sentence error has to be chosen.
  2. Questions containing a single sentence with a part of the sentence underlined or highlighted. The answer choices contain variations that may replace the underlined part of the sentence. The test-taker is expected to choose the answer choice which when replacing the underlined portion of the sentence, will make it error-free.
  3. A paragraph consisting of four to five sentences contains a few sentences which have sentence errors. The test-taker is expected to select the sentences which are error-free.
  4. Four to five random sentences of which some contain sentence errors. The test-taker is expected to select the sentences which are error-free.

 

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Common sentence errors

Although there are several grammar, spelling, and punctuation rules, the ones that predominantly appear in aptitude tests are mentioned as follows.

 

Subject-Verb Agreement

The subject and verb in a given sentence should always agree with each other in number. For singular subjects, the verb used should be singular. For plural subjects, the verb used should be plural. Most questions on this topic are framed by concealing the subject with phrases and other modifiers in order to trick the test-taker.

 

Modifiers

A modifier is defined as a word, phrase or clause that limits or qualifies the sense of another word or word group. In other words, a modifier provides extra information about other words, phrases or clauses. Modifiers can be adjectives, adverbs or even groups of words. A modifier should always be placed as close as possible to what it is modifying.

 

 Parallelism

The parallel construction requires that expressions of similar content and function should be outwardly similar. In other words, similar elements in a list must be in a similar form. These items could be nouns, infinitives, gerunds, prepositional phrases or clauses. If prepositions, articles, helping verbs and possessives begin each item in a list, then either the word should be included before every item in the list or it should be included only before the first item.


Pronoun Agreement

Every pronoun refers to a noun mentioned earlier (antecedent) in the text. According to the rule of pronoun agreement, the pronoun has to agree with its antecedent in terms of number – singular or plural. The type of pronoun used for the above purpose varies depending on whether the pronoun is in the subject or the object.

 

Logical Comparisons

Only items that are grammatically or logically similar can be compared. The quality of an item cannot be logically compared to a person, or an item cannot be compared to a group. Individuals can be compared to other individuals, qualities to other qualities, and one group to another group.

 

Phrasal Verbs

A verb followed by a preposition usually forms a phrasal verb. Phrasal verb errors occur when a different preposition is used instead of the one that is supposed to be used.

 

Examples of Sentence Correction


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Question 2 Choose the best alternative for the part of the sentence that is bolded.

The mole is a nocturnal insectivorous mammal regarded as pests by gardeners because of their burrowing activity spoiling lawns and gardens.

(a) regarded as pests by gardeners because of their burrowing activity spoiling

(b) regarded to be pests by gardeners because of their burrowing activity’s spoiling

(c) regarded as a pest by gardeners because of burrowing activity spoiling

(d) regarded as a pest by gardeners because its burrowing activity spoils

Solution: ‘The mole’ is singular and hence a singular verb ‘its’ should be used instead of the plural verb ‘their’. Accordingly, ‘as pests’ should be changed to ‘as a pest’.


Question 3 The kid does whatever his mother was done.

Answer: The kid does whatever his mother does. Here the information is in the present tense. Therefore the answer must be in the present tense. Therefore was done is replaced with does.


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