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SSC CGL Error Spotting

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This page covers SSC CGL Error Spotting with complete concept notes, 40 graded practice MCQs, key points and exam-specific tips. Free to study.

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Concept Notes

Error Spotting— Rules & Concept

Core ConceptRead this first — the foundation of the topic
SUBJECT-VERB AGREEMENT

The verb must match the subject in number. - Singular Subject → Singular Verb (adds 's' or 'es') - Plural Subject → Plural Verb (no 's') - Trick Formula: ONE = Singular verb | MANY = Plural verb 2

ARTICLE RULES

- Use 'a' before consonant sounds: a book, a university (u sounds like 'yu') - Use 'an' before vowel sounds: an apple, an hour (h is silent) - Use 'the' for specific or previously mentioned nouns 3

TENSE CONSISTENCY

Do not mix tenses in the same sentence unless logically required. - Wrong: She went to market and buys vegetables. - Right: She went to market and bought vegetables. 4

PRONOUN-ANTECEDENT AGREEMENT

The pronoun must match the noun it refers to. - Each/Everyone/Nobody → use 'his or her' (singular), not 'their' 5

PREPOSITION RULES

Prepositions are fixed with certain words. - Married TO (not married with) - Afraid OF (not afraid from) - Interested IN (not interested on) 6

COMPARISON RULES

- Use 'than' after comparatives (taller than, better than) - Never use double comparatives: 'more taller' is WRONG. Say 'taller.' - Formula: MORE + adjective OR adjective + ER — never both together 7

COUNTABLE vs UNCOUNTABLE NOUNS

- Countable (books, pens) → use 'many/few' - Uncountable (water, advice, furniture) → use 'much/little' - Formula: COUNTABLE = many/few | UNCOUNTABLE = much/little ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Exam PatternsWhat examiners ask — read before attempting PYQs

— HOW IT IS ASKED ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ SSC CGL typically tests: - Subject-Verb Agreement errors (most frequent — 30% of questions) - Wrong use of Articles (a/an/the) - Wrong Prepositions - Tense errors - Double negatives (e.g., 'I don't know nothing' — WRONG) - Misuse of comparatives and superlatives ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ SHORTCUTS AND TRICKS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ SHORTCUT 1 — THE SUBJECT FINDER TRICK: Cross out all phrases between commas or between 'of' and the verb. Whatever is left before the verb is the real subject. Example: 'A bunch of bananas ARE lying...' → Cross out 'of bananas' → Subject is 'bunch' (singular) → Verb must be 'IS.' So 'are' is the error. SHORTCUT 2 — THE NEITHER-NOR / EITHER-OR RULE: Formula: The verb agrees with the subject CLOSEST to it. - Neither Ram nor his friends ARE going. (friends is closest — plural verb) - Neither his friends nor Ram IS going. (Ram is closest — singular verb) SHORTCUT 3 — THE DOUBLE NEGATIVE TRAP: If a sentence has 'hardly,' 'scarcely,' 'barely,' or 'never,' do NOT add 'not' or 'no' with it. - Wrong: I can't hardly see him. - Right: I can hardly see him. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Worked ExampleSolve this step-by-step before moving on
1
Step 1

Find the subject → 'The committee'

2
Step 2

'Committee' is a collective noun. In SSC exams, collective nouns (committee, jury, team, government) are treated as SINGULAR when they act as one unit.

3
Step 3

So the verb should be 'has' not 'have.' Answer: Error in Part A. Correct form: 'The committee HAS decided.' ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ WORKED EXAMPLE 2 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Sentence: (A) She is one of / (B) those students who / (C) has topped the exam / (D) No Error

1
Step 1

Identify the relative clause: 'who has topped.'

2
Step 2

'Who' refers to 'those students' — plural.

3
Step 3

So verb must be 'have' not 'has.' Answer: Error in Part C. Correct form: 'who HAVE topped the exam.' Rule: In 'one of those + plural noun + who/that,' the verb is PLURAL. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ #1 MOST COMMON TRAP STUDENTS FALL INTO ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Students look at the noun nearest to the verb and use it to decide the verb form. But the REAL subject may be far away. Always cross out middle phrases (especially 'of + noun' phrases) and find the actual subject first. This one mistake costs students 2-3 marks every paper.

Key Points to Remember

  • Subject-Verb Agreement is the #1 tested area in SSC CGL Error Spotting — always find the real subject first.
  • Formula: Cross out 'of + noun' phrases to find the true subject, then match the verb.
  • Formula: EITHER-OR / NEITHER-NOR — verb agrees with the subject CLOSEST to the verb.
  • Collective nouns (jury, team, committee, government) take a SINGULAR verb when acting as one unit.
  • Formula: COUNTABLE nouns use 'many/few'; UNCOUNTABLE nouns use 'much/little' — never mix them.
  • Double comparative is always wrong — never say 'more taller' or 'most tallest'; use only one form.
  • Hardly, scarcely, barely, and seldom are already negative — never use 'not' or 'no' with them.
  • Article rule: 'an' is used before vowel SOUNDS, not just vowel letters — 'an hour,' 'a university.'
  • In 'one of those + plural noun + who/that,' the verb that follows is always PLURAL.
  • Fixed prepositions: Married TO, Afraid OF, Interested IN, Depend ON — memorise these pairs.

Exam-Specific Tips

  • SSC CGL Error Spotting accounts for approximately 4-5 questions per paper in the English Language section.
  • Collective nouns like 'committee,' 'jury,' 'parliament,' 'team,' and 'mob' take a singular verb when they act as one unified body.
  • The word 'data' is the plural form of 'datum' — so the correct usage is 'data ARE' not 'data is' in formal/exam grammar.
  • Words like 'news,' 'information,' 'advice,' 'furniture,' 'luggage,' and 'equipment' are uncountable nouns and always take a singular verb.
  • 'Each,' 'every,' 'either,' 'neither,' 'anyone,' 'everyone,' 'nobody,' and 'someone' are always singular and require a singular verb.
  • Double negatives using 'hardly/scarcely/barely + not' are always grammatically incorrect — a direct MCQ trap in SSC exams.
  • The phrase 'as well as' does NOT change the number of the verb — the verb agrees with the FIRST subject only: 'Ram as well as his friends IS coming.'
Practice MCQs

Error Spotting — Practice Questions

40graded MCQs · easy to hard · full solution & trap analysis · showing 20 of 40

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Practice 1easy

The data (A) shows / (B) show / (C) have shown / (D) are showing that the sales have increased significantly this quarter. No error (E)

Practice 2easy

The principal along with the teachers (A) have planned / (B) has planned / (C) are planning / (D) have been planning the annual function for next month. No error (E)

Practice 3easy

Neither the manager nor the employees (A) was / (B) were / (C) has been / (D) have been willing to compromise on the salary issue. No error (E)

Practice 4easy

She has been working in this organisation for five years and have contributed significantly to its growth. No error

Practice 5easy

The manager insisted that every employee should submit their reports by Friday without any delay. No error

Practice 6easy

The data shows that the number of students enrolling in online courses have increased significantly over the past year. No error

Practice 7easy

Neither the principal nor the teachers was present at the assembly, which disappointed the students greatly. No error

Practice 8easy

The committee (A) have decided / (B) has decided / (C) are deciding / (D) have been deciding that the new policy will be implemented next month. No error (E)

Practice 9easy

Neither the manager nor the employees (A) was / (B) were / (C) have been / (D) has been willing to compromise on the issue. No error (E)

Practice 10easy

She has been working in this office (A) since / (B) for / (C) during / (D) while five years and has earned considerable experience. No error (E)

Practice 11easy

The principal, along with the teachers, (A) have planned / (B) has planned / (C) are planning / (D) have been planning the annual school event for the past three weeks. No error (E)

Practice 12easy

The principal, along with the teachers, (A) have planned / (B) has planned / (C) are planning / (D) have been planning a special assembly to honour the distinguished alumni. No error (E)

Practice 13easy

The committee (A) have decided / (B) has decided / (C) are deciding / (D) have been deciding that the new policy will be implemented next month. No error (E)

Practice 14easy

The data (A) shows / (B) show / (C) are showing / (D) have shown that the majority of students prefer online learning over classroom instruction. No error (E)

Practice 15medium

The committee (A) / have reached (B) / a unanimous decision (C) / on the matter. (D) / No error (E)

Practice 16medium

The data (A) shows that / (B) the majority of students / (C) prefers / (D) online learning over traditional methods. No error (E)

Practice 17medium

Neither the manager nor the employees (A) was / (B) were / (C) have been / (D) has been willing to compromise on the salary issue. No error (E)

Practice 18medium

The data (A) suggests / (B) suggest / (C) are suggesting / (D) have suggested that climate change is affecting agricultural productivity in the region. No error (E)

Practice 19medium

The report emphasises that students should focus (A) on / (B) in / (C) at / (D) for developing critical thinking skills alongside technical knowledge. No error (E)

Practice 20medium

The principal requested that (A) each of the teachers submit / (B) each of the teachers submits / (C) all the teachers submit / (D) all the teachers submits / their lesson plans by Friday. No error (E)

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60-Second Revision — Error Spotting

  • Remember: Always cross out 'of + noun' phrases first — the noun before 'of' is usually the real subject that controls the verb.
  • Formula: EITHER/NEITHER-OR/NOR → verb agrees with the subject CLOSEST to it.
  • Formula: COUNTABLE = many/few | UNCOUNTABLE = much/little — confusion here is a guaranteed trap.
  • Trap: Words like 'hardly,' 'scarcely,' and 'barely' are already negative — adding 'not' creates a double negative error.
  • Remember: Collective nouns (team, jury, committee) → singular verb when acting as ONE unit.
  • Trap: 'more taller' or 'most shortest' = double comparative = always wrong. Use EITHER 'more + adjective' OR 'adjective + er,' never both.
  • Remember: 'an' goes before vowel SOUNDS — 'an hour' (h is silent), 'a university' (sounds like 'yu') — sound decides the article, not the letter.
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