Sentence Improvement / Phrase Replacement
About 7 min · English Language · English
Time worked out from the lesson's 452 words at 150 words a minute, plus a minute for each question.
Sentence Improvement (also called Phrase Replacement) is part of the SBI Clerk Prelims English section. You are given a sentence with an underlined part, and you must decide whether that part is correct as written or needs to be replaced with one of the given alternatives.
Key ideas
- Subject-Verb Agreement: A singular subject takes a singular verb; a plural subject takes a plural verb. Watch for tricky subjects like "each," "everyone," "neither," and collective nouns.
- Tense Consistency: A sentence should maintain the same tense throughout unless there is a logical reason to shift. Past actions stay in past; present habits stay in present.
- Correct Use of Prepositions: Many verbs and adjectives pair with specific prepositions (e.g., "interested in," "comply with," "afraid of").
- Parallelism: Items in a list or comparison must follow the same grammatical structure. "She likes reading, writing, and to swim" is wrong; "reading, writing, and swimming" is correct.
- Pronoun-Antecedent Agreement: Pronouns must match their antecedents in number and gender. In strict formal usage, "Each student must bring their book" is written "Each student must bring his or her book".
Watch out for
- Ignoring the hidden subject: Students see "team members" near the verb and choose a plural verb, forgetting that "along with," "as well as," "together with," and "in addition to" do not change subject number. → Always identify the true subject before the interrupting phrase.
- Choosing "No improvement" too quickly: When nothing looks obviously wrong, students assume the sentence is correct. → Read the sentence twice; subtle errors like wrong prepositions or redundancy are easy to miss.
- Overcorrecting into awkward phrasing: An option may be grammatically possible but stylistically poor or unidiomatic. → Choose the option that is both correct and natural-sounding.
Quick reference
- True subject determines verb number—ignore interrupters like "along with" and "as well as."
- "Prefer X to Y"—never "than" or "over."
- "Cope with," "discuss," "emphasize"—no extra prepositions.
- Remove redundancy: "return back" → "return"; "revert back" → "revert."
- Maintain tense consistency—match verbs to time markers.
Check yourself: 3 questions
1. The committee has decided to **postpone the meeting until** next Monday due to unforeseen circumstances. Which of the following can replace the underlined phrase to make the sentence grammatically correct?
2. The manager asked him **to look into the matter** and submit a detailed report by Friday. Which of the following can replace the underlined phrase to make the sentence grammatically correct?
3. Despite of the heavy rain, the cricket match continued without any interruption. Which of the following can replace the underlined phrase to make the sentence grammatically correct?
This lesson is cut from the topic's note, not rewritten. Fact-checked on 18 Oct 2026: an AI-assisted check of this note against cited sources; the errors it found were corrected that day. Some errors may remain. The questions are from Shishya's validated question bank.
Read the full noteFlashcards for this topic
Saves this lesson and its 3 questions in this browser on this phone. No sign-in; nothing about you is saved or sent. A saved copy is not updated until you save it again. Parts that load from the server when you use them (the AI tutor, adaptive practice, sign-in) still need a connection.