Spot the Error
About 6 min · English Language and Comprehension · English
Time worked out from the lesson's 415 words at 150 words a minute, plus a minute for each question.
Spot the Error questions test your understanding of English grammar rules by asking you to identify which part of a sentence contains a mistake. In SSC MTS Paper 1, a sentence is divided into three or four parts (labeled A, B, C, D), and you must pick the part with the grammatical error. Sometimes all parts are correct, making "No error" the right answer.
Key ideas
- Subject-Verb Agreement: The verb must match the subject in number (singular/plural) and person. Collective nouns, indefinite pronouns, and phrases between subject and verb often create confusion.
- Tense Consistency: Within a sentence or related clauses, tenses must logically align. Mixing past and present without reason signals an error.
- Preposition Usage: English prepositions are idiomatic—certain verbs and adjectives pair with specific prepositions (e.g., "good at," not "good in"). Wrong preposition choices are frequent error types.
- Article Errors: "A," "an," and "the" have specific rules. Omitting necessary articles or adding unnecessary ones creates errors, especially with countable/uncountable nouns.
- Pronoun-Antecedent Agreement: Pronouns must agree with their antecedents in number, gender, and person. Ambiguous pronoun references also constitute errors.
Quick reference
- Subject far from verb? Mentally remove middle words to check agreement.
- Each, every, one, everyone, someone → always singular verb.
- Neither/nor, either/or → verb agrees with nearest subject.
- Check prepositions against common verb/adjective-preposition pairs (differ from, comply with, capable of).
- Tense must match time markers — "yesterday" requires past, "since" requires present perfect.
Check yourself: 3 questions
1. Read each part of the sentence carefully to find if there is an error in any part. Mark that part as your answer. If there is no error, mark 'No error' as your answer. The students / have been working hard / since two months / for their exams.
2. Read each part of the sentence carefully to find if there is an error in any part. Mark that part as your answer. If there is no error, mark 'No error' as your answer. One of my friend / has invited me / to attend his birthday party / next week.
3. Read each part of the sentence carefully to find if there is an error in any part. Mark that part as your answer. If there is no error, mark 'No error' as your answer. The number of employees / in this company / are increasing / every year.
This lesson is cut from the topic's note, not rewritten. Fact-checked on 21 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.
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