Grammar and sentence correction

In short

Grammar and sentence correction tests whether a sentence is built correctly - whether the subject and verb agree, the pronouns point to something clear, the modifiers sit next to what they modify, and the parts of a list are in the same grammatical shape. In placement papers it appears as "spot the error" (the sentence is split into parts A/B/C/D and one part is wrong), "which option corrects the underlined portion", and "no error" questions. It is examined in TCS NQT, Infosys, Wipro Elite, Capgemini, Accenture, Cognizant, bank PO and SSC papers, in the English/Technical Communication paper of most AICTE-model B.Tech curricula, and indirectly in every interview and email you write at work. Employers read grammar as a proxy for care: a resume with "I am having 2 years experience" gets filtered before a human reads the projects.

Explained

Subject-verb agreement (concord)

• The verb agrees with the subject, not with the nearest noun. *The quality of the components is poor* (subject = quality, not components).
• Words between the subject and verb - *along with, as well as, together with, besides, in addition to, accompanied by* - do not change the number. *The manager, along with his team, has arrived.*
• *And* joining two subjects takes a plural verb: *Ravi and Priya are here*. But if the two nouns name one person or one idea, the verb is singular: *Bread and butter is my breakfast*; *The Chairman and Managing Director has signed* (one person, one article).
• *Either...or, neither...nor, not only...but also, or* - the verb agrees with the nearer subject. *Neither the students nor the teacher was informed*; *Neither the teacher nor the students were informed*.
• Indefinite pronouns and determiners - *each, every, either, neither, everyone, somebody, nobody, anyone, no one, many a* - are singular. *Each of the candidates has been called*; *Many a student has failed*.
• *None* takes singular or plural depending on sense; *none of the water is*, *none of the boys were* are both accepted in modern usage.
• Collective nouns (*team, committee, jury, government, staff, police*) take a singular verb when acting as one body, plural when members act separately. *The committee has decided*; *The committee are divided in their opinions*. *Police* is normally treated as plural in Indian and British usage: *The police have filed an FIR*.
• Nouns plural in form, singular in sense: *news, mathematics, physics, economics, politics, ethics, measles, innings* - *The news is good*. Singular in form, plural in sense: *cattle, people, poultry, vermin, gentry* - *Cattle are grazing*.
• Pair and plural-only nouns (*scissors, trousers, spectacles, pliers, premises, surroundings, alms, thanks*) are plural, but *a pair of scissors is*.
• Quantity as one block takes a singular verb: *Twenty lakh rupees is a large amount*; *Five years is a long time*.
• *A number of* + plural noun = plural verb; *the number of* = singular. *A number of files are missing*; *The number of files is twelve*.
• With *one of the* + plural noun + relative clause, the verb in the clause is plural: *He is one of those engineers who work late*. But *the only one of those engineers who works late*.
• Subject after *there/here*: the verb agrees with what follows. *There are three options*.
• Percentages and fractions take the number of the noun they refer to: *Half of the cake is gone*; *Half of the students are absent*.

Pronouns, case and reference

• Case: subject form (*I, he, she, we, they, who*) versus object form (*me, him, her, us, them, whom*). *Between you and me* (never *between you and I* - *between* is a preposition). *Let him and me go*.
• After *than* and *as...as*, supply the missing verb to choose the case: *He is taller than I (am)*; *They paid him more than (they paid) me*.
• Antecedent agreement: the pronoun matches its antecedent in number and person. *Every student must bring his or her book* (strict rule); *their* with *every/each/anyone* is now widely accepted and is the safer neutral choice in workplace writing, but many Indian competitive papers still mark *his* as the "correct" option - read the options before choosing.
• Ambiguous reference is an error even when the grammar is legal: *Rahul told Vijay that he had been promoted* - who was promoted? Rewrite: *Rahul told Vijay, "You have been promoted."*
• Reflexives (*myself, himself*) are used only when the subject and object are the same person (*He hurt himself*) or for emphasis (*I myself saw it*). *Myself Biju* and *Ramesh and myself attended* are wrong - use *I*/*me*.
• Relative pronouns: *who* for people, *which* for things, *that* for either in a defining clause. *Whose* can be used for things. *That* takes no comma; *which* in a non-defining clause takes a comma: *The report, which was late, was rejected*.
• One...one: *One must do one's duty* (not *his duty*, in formal usage).

Modifiers: placement and dangling

• A modifier attaches to whatever is nearest. Misplaced modifier: *He only drank two glasses* (he did nothing but drink) versus *He drank only two glasses* (just two). Limiting words - *only, just, almost, nearly, even, hardly, merely* - go immediately before what they limit.
• Dangling modifier: an introductory phrase whose doer is missing from the main clause. *Walking into the lab, the equipment was found damaged* - the equipment was not walking. Fix by naming the doer: *Walking into the lab, we found the equipment damaged*, or *When we walked into the lab, the equipment was damaged*.
• Squinting modifier: sits between two things and could modify either. *Reading quickly improves comprehension* - rewrite as *Quick reading improves...* or *Reading improves comprehension quickly*.
• Test for a dangler: the word right after the introductory comma must be the one performing the introductory action.

Parallelism, comparison and structure

• Parallelism: items joined by *and, or, but* and by correlative pairs must share grammatical form. *She likes reading, writing and to code* → *...reading, writing and coding*.
• Correlatives must be symmetrical: *not only X but also Y* where X and Y are the same part of speech. *He not only lost his wallet but also his phone* → *He lost not only his wallet but also his phone*.
• Comparisons must be of like things: *The climate of Mumbai is hotter than Delhi* compares climate with a city → *...than that of Delhi*. Plural: *The roads of Pune are better than those of Nagpur*.
• Double comparatives/superlatives are wrong: *more better, most easiest, more superior*. Latin comparatives - *superior, inferior, senior, junior, prior, preferable* - take to, not *than*, and never *more*.
• Comparative versus superlative: comparative for two (*the better of the two*), superlative for three or more (*the best of the three*). With *any other*: *Mumbai is larger than any other city in Maharashtra* (not *any city*, which would exclude Mumbai from itself).
• Absolute adjectives - *unique, perfect, complete, final, round, empty* - are not normally compared: *more unique* is faulty.
• Faulty coordination/subordination: *Although he was late, but he finished the task* - use one connector, not both. Same with *because...so*, *though...yet* (in strict exam usage).
• Run-on sentence and comma splice: *The build failed, we fixed it* - two independent clauses joined by a comma. Fix with a full stop, a semicolon, or a conjunction.
• Sentence fragment: no finite verb or no subject - *Because the server crashed.* A fragment is marked wrong in formal writing.

Verbs, voice and common Indian-English slips

• Finite verb form after modals and *to*: *He can go*, *She must submit*, *I want to go*. After *had better, would rather, let, make, see, hear* use the bare infinitive: *You had better leave*.
• Stative verbs (*have* = possess, *know, believe, understand, like, want, see, belong*) are not normally used in the continuous. *I am having two brothers* → *I have two brothers*; *I am knowing him* → *I know him*. This is the single most common Indian-English error in interviews.
• *Since* with a point of time, *for* with a duration: *since 2024*, *for two years*.
• Articles with professions and uncountables: *He is an engineer*; *He gave me an advice* → *a piece of advice*. *Equipment, furniture, information, luggage, machinery, staff, evidence, scenery, work* are uncountable - no *-s*, no *a*.
• Prepositional collocations examined often: *discuss* (no *about*), *comprise* (no *of* in strict usage), *investigate* (no *into* as a verb object), *married to*, *compared with/to*, *different from*, *consists of*, *capable of*, *deprived of*, *insist on*, *congratulate on*, *agree with a person / to a proposal*.
• Passive voice: correct form is *be* + past participle - *The report was submitted by the team*. Error pattern: *was went*, *is came*, *has been went*.
• Redundancy (pleonasm) is a marked error in sentence improvement: *return back, repeat again, revert back, cope up with, discuss about, reason is because, each and every one, final conclusion, new innovation, advance planning, close proximity, my own personal view*.
• Indianisms to avoid in writing and interviews: *do the needful* (dated, avoid in new writing), *prepone* (understood in India, not international), *out of station*, *passed out of college* (use *graduated from*), *kindly revert* (means *go back to a former state*, not *reply*), *updation*, *cousin brother*, *today morning* (use *this morning*), *give an exam* (use *take/sit an exam*).
• Confusables that error-spotting loves: *affect/effect, lie/lay, rise/raise, advice/advise, practice/practise, principal/principle, stationary/stationery, complement/compliment, its/it's, lose/loose, beside/besides, few/a few, little/a little, less/fewer (less for uncountable, fewer for countable), amount/number*.

How to attack the question types

1. Error spotting (A/B/C/D/No error): read the whole sentence once for sense. Then locate the main subject and main verb and check agreement. Then check pronouns, then prepositions, then tense sequence, then parallelism in any list. Mark the part that is *grammatically* wrong, not the part that sounds unusual.
2. Sentence improvement / sentence correction (five options): the underlined part is option (a) in many Indian papers (or "No improvement"). Identify the error type first, then eliminate options that repeat it. Prefer the shortest option that is grammatical and unambiguous - length is a tie-breaker, never the test.
3. Scanning order that catches most marks fast: SV agreement → pronoun case and reference → modifier placement → parallelism → comparison → tense consistency → preposition/article → redundancy.
4. "No error" is a real answer. In most sets roughly one in six to one in eight sentences is correct; refusing to ever mark it loses marks.
5. Do not change meaning. A correction that is grammatical but says something different from the original is wrong in sentence-correction sets.
6. Trust the rule, not the ear. Indian English normalises *discuss about* and *one of my friend*; the paper does not.

Key points

• Concord - the verb agrees with the grammatical subject in number and person, not with an intervening noun.
• Interrupting phrase - *as well as, along with, besides* keep the subject's original number.
• Either/or, neither/nor - verb agrees with the nearer subject; *not only...but also* likewise.
• Each, every, everyone, nobody, many a - always singular verb.
• Collective noun - singular when the group acts as a unit, plural when members act individually; *police* is plural.
• A number of / the number of - plural verb / singular verb respectively.
• Pronoun case - *between you and me*; after *than*, complete the hidden verb to decide.
• Ambiguous antecedent - a pronoun with two possible referents is an error even if the grammar is sound.
• Reflexive misuse - *myself/himself* only as object of the same subject or for emphasis, never as a subject.
• Dangling modifier - the noun right after the introductory phrase must be its doer.
• Misplaced *only* - limiting words sit immediately before the word they limit.
• Parallelism - items in a list or correlative pair share the same grammatical form.
• Like-with-like comparison - use *that of / those of* when comparing attributes, not objects.
• Latin comparatives - *superior, inferior, senior, junior, prior, preferable* take *to*, never *than* or *more*.
• Double comparative - *more better, most easiest* are always wrong; absolutes like *unique* are not compared.
• Stative verbs - *have, know, understand, believe* are not used in the continuous tense.
• Uncountables - *equipment, information, furniture, advice, luggage, staff, evidence* take no plural *-s* and no *a/an*.
• Redundancy - *return back, discuss about, cope up with, reason is because, revert back* are marked wrong.

Examples

Example 1 - Error spotting. *(A) The list of candidates (B) who have applied for (C) the post of junior engineer (D) have been displayed. (E) No error*

1. Main subject = *The list*, singular. Main verb = *have been displayed*.
2. *of candidates* is a prepositional phrase - it cannot be the subject.
3. The clause verb *have applied* in (B) is correct: its subject is *who*, standing for *candidates* (plural).
4. Answer: (D) - *have been displayed* → *has been displayed*.

Example 2 - Sentence improvement. *"He is one of those managers who believes in delegation."* (a) who believes (b) who believe (c) which believe (d) whom believes

1. Structure is *one of those + plural noun + who*. The relative pronoun *who* refers to *managers*, not to *one*.
2. So the clause verb must be plural: *who believe*.
3. *which* is for things; *whom* is the object form, but *who* here is the subject of *believe*.
4. Answer: (b) who believe. Contrast: *He is the only one of those managers who believes in delegation* - here *who* refers to *the only one*, singular.

Example 3 - Dangling modifier. *"After submitting the project report, the viva was conducted by the external examiner."*

1. Introductory phrase: *After submitting the project report* - the doer is the student.
2. The word after the comma is *the viva* - so the sentence says the viva submitted the report. Dangler.
3. Fix 1 (name the doer): *After submitting the project report, the students appeared for the viva conducted by the external examiner.*
4. Fix 2 (make it a clause): *After the students submitted the project report, the viva was conducted by the external examiner.*
5. Note the trap: the passive main clause hides the doer, which is why danglers and the passive travel together.

Example 4 - Parallelism and comparison together. *"The training programme was not only cheaper but also it was more effective than the one conducted in Pune, whose faculty was more superior."*

1. Correlative asymmetry: *not only cheaper* (adjective) pairs with *but also it was more effective* (clause). Make both adjectives: *not only cheaper but also more effective*.
2. Comparison: *than the one conducted in Pune* is valid - *the one* stands for *programme*, so like is compared with like. Keep it.
3. Double comparative: *more superior* - *superior* is already comparative, so *more* must go; and *superior* takes a *to*-complement, never *than*. → *whose faculty was superior to ours*.
4. Corrected: *The training programme was not only cheaper but also more effective than the one conducted in Pune, whose faculty was superior to ours.*

Example 5 - A scan in the recommended order. *"Each of the five engineers have submitted their report, and the committee are yet to discuss about it."*

Corrected: *Each of the five engineers has submitted his or her report, and the committee is yet to discuss them.*

Quick comparison table - the five error families and their signature:

Where it is used

• IT services hiring (TCS NQT, Infosys, Wipro, Cognizant, Accenture, Capgemini, LTIMindtree): the English section carries error spotting and sentence correction, and the communication-assessment round scores written grammar directly.
• Banking and government exams: IBPS PO/Clerk, SBI PO, RBI Grade B, SSC CGL and CHSL all run dedicated error-spotting and sentence-improvement sets; CAT/XAT verbal ability tests parallelism and modifiers through editing questions.
• Business communication at work: client emails, status reports, minutes of meetings, release notes and incident reports - a misplaced *only* in a scope email changes what has been committed to a client.
• Technical documentation and QA roles: user manuals, SOPs, test cases and API docs demand parallel bullet structure and unambiguous pronouns; editorial and content roles test it in a written assignment.
• BPO, KPO and customer support: chat and email support scripts are graded on grammar in quality audits; voice-process trainers teach exactly these concord and tense rules.
• Resumes and LinkedIn profiles: parallel bullet openings (*Built... Automated... Reduced...*) and correct tense for past roles are what recruiters and ATS screeners see first.

Interview questions

• Q: What is subject-verb agreement, in one line? A: The verb must match the grammatical subject in number and person, regardless of any phrase sitting between them - *The box of files is heavy*.
• Q: "Neither the manager nor the staff ___ informed." Fill it and explain. A: *was* - with *neither...nor*, the verb agrees with the nearer subject, and *staff* here is treated as a single body; if it were *the staff nor the manager*, it would still be *was*, and *neither the manager nor the employees were...* takes the plural.
• Q: What is a dangling modifier? Give an example. A: An introductory phrase whose doer does not appear as the subject of the main clause - *Having finished the code, the laptop was shut down* implies the laptop finished the code.
• Q: Correct: "Between you and I, the deal is off." A: *Between you and me* - *between* is a preposition and takes the object form of the pronoun.
• Q: Why is "This machine is more superior than the old one" wrong? A: *Superior* is already a comparative and takes *to*, not *than*, and cannot take *more* - *This machine is superior to the old one*.
• Q: What is faulty parallelism and how do you fix it? A: Items joined by a conjunction have different grammatical forms; fix by putting them all in the same form - *to test, to deploy and to monitor*, not *to test, deploying and monitoring*.
• Q: Is "The committee are divided" ever correct? A: Yes - a collective noun takes a plural verb when the members are acting individually, as in disagreeing; it takes a singular verb when the group acts as a unit.
• Q: What is wrong with "I am having a car"? A: *Have* in the sense of possession is a stative verb and is not used in the continuous - *I have a car*. (*I am having lunch* is fine, because there *have* means *eat*.)
• Q: Difference between *fewer* and *less*? A: *Fewer* for countable nouns (*fewer defects*), *less* for uncountable quantities (*less time*, *less effort*).
• Q: Where does *only* go in "He completed only the first module"? A: Immediately before what it limits - as written, only the first module was completed; *He only completed...* would mean he did nothing but complete it.
• Q: How do you decide the case after *than*? A: Restore the implied verb - *She earns more than I (do)*, but *The company pays her more than (it pays) me*.
• Q: Name three redundancies common in Indian office English. A: *Revert back*, *discuss about* and *cope up with*; also *return back* and *the reason is because*.

Common mistakes

• Agreeing the verb with the noun nearest to it instead of the real subject - *One of the machines are faulty*.
• Never marking "No error", on the assumption that every exam sentence must contain a fault.
• Fixing a sentence by rewriting it in a way that is grammatical but changes the meaning - in sentence correction, meaning must be preserved.
• Choosing the longest, most formal-sounding option; correct options are usually the shortest grammatical ones.
• Using *myself* as a subject in introductions - *Myself Rahul, I am from Kochi* - which interviewers notice immediately.
• Carrying spoken Indian English into writing: *discuss about, prepone, passed out of college, kindly revert, I am having two years experience*.
• Checking only the underlined or lettered part in isolation, without reading the whole sentence for the subject, the antecedent or the tense sequence.

Related topics

Tenses and verb forms · Articles, prepositions and conjunctions · Cloze tests and sentence improvement · Para jumbles and sentence completion · Vocabulary, synonyms and antonyms · Business and email communication.