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SSC CGL Find the Error (underlined parts)

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This page covers SSC CGL Find the Error (underlined parts) with complete concept notes, 24 graded practice MCQs, key points and exam-specific tips. Free to study.

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Concept Notes

Find the Error (underlined parts)— Rules & Concept

Core ConceptRead this first — the foundation of the topic
Example trap

'The team are playing well.' — Here 'team' is collective noun treated as singular in formal English → correct form is 'The team IS playing.' 2. TENSE ERRORS — Wrong tense used in the sentence context. Rule: If one clause is in past tense, the other should also be past (unless it is a universal truth)

Example

'She told me that the Earth is round.' — This is CORRECT because 'Earth is round' is a universal truth. Students often wrongly change 'is' to 'was'. 3. ARTICLES (A, AN, THE) — Very frequently tested. Rule A/AN: Use 'AN' before words with vowel SOUND (not just vowel letter)

Formula

AN + vowel sound word | A + consonant sound word Examples: 'An honest man' (H is silent, so vowel sound), 'A university' (sounds like 'Yoo', so consonant sound)

Rule THE

Use 'THE' before specific nouns, superlatives, unique things (the Sun, the Moon, the best). 4. PREPOSITIONS — Wrong preposition is one of the top errors

Remember fixed pairs

'Married TO', 'Differ FROM', 'Comply WITH', 'Interfere IN/WITH', 'Deaf TO', 'Blind TO', 'Aim AT', 'Agree WITH a person / ON a topic' 5. PRONOUN ERRORS — Pronoun must agree with its antecedent (the noun it replaces). Rule: Use 'who' for persons, 'which' for things, 'that' for both. Rule: Reflexive pronoun (himself, herself) is used when subject and object are same. 6. DEGREES OF COMPARISON — Double comparison is always wrong

Formula

NEVER use 'more + -er' or 'most + -est' together

Wrong

'He is more taller than me.' Correct: 'He is taller than me.' 7. MODIFIERS — A dangling modifier means the describing phrase does not clearly refer to the right noun. Rule: The modifier must be next to the word it describes. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔷

Exam PatternsWhat examiners ask — read before attempting PYQs
Errors are almost always in

- Part A or Part B (70% of the time — the first half of the sentence) - Articles and prepositions together appear in about 40% of questions - Subject-verb agreement appears in nearly every paper - 'No Error' option is correct roughly 10-15% of the time — do not overuse it ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔷 SHORTCUTS AND TRICKS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ SHORTCUT 1 — THE SOUND TEST FOR ARTICLES: Always say the word OUT LOUD. If it starts with a vowel SOUND → AN. If it starts with a consonant SOUND → A. AN + [vowel sound]: an apple, an egg, an honest man, an MBA, an NCC cadet A + [consonant sound]: a university, a union, a one-rupee coin, a European SHORTCUT 2 — IDENTIFY THE SUBJECT FIRST: In any sentence, cancel all prepositional phrases between subject and verb

Formula

Cancel [of/in/with/along with + noun] → then check verb with REAL subject

Example

'A box of chocolates ARE on the table.' → Cancel 'of chocolates' → subject is 'A box' (singular) → verb should be IS, not ARE

SHORTCUT 3 — DOUBLE COMPARISON TRAP

Scan for 'more/most' + adjective. If adjective already ends in -er or -est → automatic error

Formula

more + [-er adjective] = ERROR | most + [-est adjective] = ERROR Example: 'more better', 'most tallest' → both wrong. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔷

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

Find the subject. 'Each of the students' — the head word is 'Each', not 'students'.

2
Step 2

'Each' is always singular. It always takes a singular verb.

3
Step 3

'have submitted' is plural. This is wrong.

4
Step 4

Correct form → 'has submitted'. ANSWER: Part C is the error. Formula applied: Each / Every / Either / Neither + singular verb always. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔷 WORKED EXAMPLE 2 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Q: (A) He is / (B) a European / (C) but she is / (D) an Indian. / (E) No Error

1
Step 1

Check articles. Part B says 'a European'.

2
Step 2

Apply SOUND TEST — 'European' sounds like 'Yoo-ropean'. Starts with consonant sound 'Y'.

3
Step 3

So 'a European' is CORRECT.

4
Step 4

Check Part D — 'an Indian'. 'Indian' starts with vowel sound 'I'. So 'an Indian' is CORRECT.

5
Step 5

Both articles are correctly used. No grammar issue elsewhere. ANSWER: Part E — No Error. Lesson: Do not change 'a European' to 'an European'. That is the trap. European has consonant sound. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔷 NUMBER ONE

Exam TrapsCommon mistakes students make — avoid these

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ TRAP: Students look at the LETTER of the word, not the SOUND. They write 'an university' (wrong) because U is a vowel letter. They write 'a honest man' (wrong) because H is a consonant letter. Always go by SOUND, not spelling. This single trick can save 1-2 marks per paper.

Key Points to Remember

  • Spotting Errors tests grammar only — not vocabulary or meaning.
  • Subject-Verb Agreement: Singular subject = singular verb; Plural subject = plural verb.
  • Shortcut — Cancel prepositional phrases to find the real subject, then match the verb.
  • Article Rule Formula: A/AN depends on SOUND not spelling — AN before vowel sound, A before consonant sound.
  • Each, Every, Either, Neither, Anyone, Everyone — always take a SINGULAR verb.
  • Double Comparison Formula: 'more + -er adjective' or 'most + -est adjective' = always an error.
  • Universal truths stay in Present Tense even inside Past Tense sentences (e.g. 'She said the Earth is round').
  • Preposition pairs to memorise: Married TO, Differ FROM, Comply WITH, Agree WITH (person), Agree ON (topic).
  • Pronoun Rule: WHO for persons, WHICH for things, THAT for both; reflexive pronoun when subject = object.
  • Trap: 'No Error' is correct only 10-15% of the time — do not pick it unless you have checked every part carefully.

Exam-Specific Tips

  • 'A university' is correct — 'university' starts with consonant sound 'Yoo', so article A is used, not AN.
  • 'An honest man' is correct — 'honest' starts with silent H, making it a vowel sound, so AN is used.
  • 'Each of the boys HAS' is correct — 'Each' is always singular and takes singular verb HAS, not HAVE.
  • Double comparison error: 'more better' and 'most tallest' are always grammatically wrong in English.
  • 'The Earth is round' stays in present tense even after past tense reporting verb — it is a universal truth rule.
  • 'Married TO' is the correct preposition — 'married with' is a common wrong form tested in SSC exams.
  • 'Comply WITH' is the correct preposition — 'comply to' or 'comply for' are incorrect forms.
  • Collective nouns like team, committee, jury take singular verb in formal/standard English used in SSC exams.
Practice MCQs

Find the Error (underlined parts) — Practice Questions

24graded MCQs · easy to hard · full solution & trap analysis · showing 20 of 24

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Practice 1easy

Read the sentence carefully and identify the part containing an error: "The committee (A) have decided / (B) to implement / (C) the new policy / (D) next month. / No error (E)"

Practice 2easy

Neither the manager (A) nor the employees / (B) was / (C) present / (D) at the meeting. / No error

Practice 3easy

She is one of the few employees (A) who has / (B) completed / (C) the training / (D) on time. / No error

Practice 4easy

She has been working (A) in this office / (B) since five years / (C) and she is / (D) very satisfied. / No error

Practice 5easy

The research team have published their findings in a prestigious journal and it has received widespread acclaim. No error

Practice 6easy

Neither the manager nor the employees (A) was (B) satisfied with the new policy (C) that the director had announced (D). No error (E)

Practice 7easy

The data (A) shows (B) that the number of students attending the workshop (C) have increased significantly (D). No error (E)

Practice 8easy

The principal, along with the teachers, (A) are planning (B) to organise a cultural programme (C) next month (D). No error (E)

Practice 9easy

She has been working (A) in this organisation (B) for the last five years (C) and she is still working there (D). No error (E)

Practice 10easy

She has been working in this organisation since five years and have gained considerable experience. No error

Practice 11easy

The manager requested that all employees submit their reports by Friday and to attend the meeting on Saturday. No error

Practice 12easy

Neither the principal nor the teachers was present at the assembly, so the event had to be postponed. No error

Practice 13easy

The data (A) shows / (B) that the majority of students / (C) prefer / (D) online learning. / No error

Practice 14medium

The manager insisted (A) that the report / (B) should be submitted / (C) before the deadline / (D) yesterday. / No error

Practice 15medium

Read the sentence carefully. Identify the part that contains a grammatical error. The committee (A) have decided / (B) to implement / (C) the new policy / (D) across all departments. / No error (E)

Practice 16medium

The principal has asked (A) the students / (B) to refrain / (C) from using / (D) mobile phones in the campus. / No error

Practice 17medium

The government (A) has announced / (B) that it will provide / (C) financial assistance to / (D) those who are affected. / No error (E)

Practice 18hard

The committee (A) have decided that the new policy, which affects (B) all employees who works (C) in the administrative department, will be implemented (D) next month. Find the error.

Practice 19hard

The research team (A) has been working on this project since five years, and they (B) have already published three papers, which (C) demonstrates the significance of their work to the scientific community (D) that has been waiting for such findings. Find the error.

Practice 20hard

The committee (A) have decided that all members who (B) has attended the previous meeting should (C) submit their reports before the deadline that (D) was set last week. Find the error.

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60-Second Revision — Find the Error (underlined parts)

  • Remember: AN before vowel SOUND, A before consonant SOUND — test by speaking the word aloud, not reading it.
  • Formula: Cancel [of/with/in + noun] between subject and verb → then match verb to the REAL subject.
  • Formula: Each / Every / Either / Neither / Anyone / Everyone = SINGULAR verb always — no exceptions.
  • Formula: more + [-er] or most + [-est] = instant error — never use double comparison.
  • Trap: Universal truths (Earth is round, Sun rises in East) stay in Present Tense even in reported speech.
  • Remember fixed prepositions: Married TO, Differ FROM, Comply WITH, Agree WITH (person), Agree ON (topic).
  • Trap: Do not choose 'No Error' quickly — verify all parts; it is correct only about 10-15% of the time.
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