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SSC CGL Prepositions

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This page covers SSC CGL Prepositions with complete concept notes, 58 graded practice MCQs, key points and exam-specific tips. Free to study.

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Concept Notes

Prepositions— Rules & Concept

1.Core Concept

Read this first — the foundation of the topic
Example

The book is ON the table. — Here 'on' connects 'book' and 'table'. It tells us where the book is

Common prepositions

in, on, at, by, for, with, about, between, among, since, from, to, of, through, during, against, beyond. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

2.Key Rules

Core rules you must know cold

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ RULE 1 — IN / ON / AT for TIME: • Use AT for exact time → at 5 o'clock, at noon, at night • Use ON for days and dates → on Monday, on 15th August • Use IN for months, years, seasons, long periods → in January, in 2024, in summer, in the morning FORMULA: AT (point) → ON (surface/day) → IN (area/period) Remember it as: A-O-I = Smaller to Bigger time unit RULE 2 — IN / ON / AT for PLACE: • AT = exact point/address → at the bus stop, at 10 Baker Street • ON = surface → on the table, on the wall, on the floor • IN = enclosed space → in the room, in the box, in India RULE 3 — SINCE vs FOR: • SINCE = starting point of time → since 2010, since Monday, since morning • FOR = duration/period → for 3 hours, for two years, for a long time FORMULA: SINCE + Point of Time | FOR + Period of Time RULE 4 — BETWEEN vs AMONG: • BETWEEN = two people or things → between Ram and Shyam • AMONG = more than two → among the students FORMULA: BETWEEN = 2 | AMONG = 3 or more RULE 5 — BY vs UNTIL (TILL): • BY = action completed before a deadline → Submit the form by Monday (means on or before Monday) • UNTIL/TILL = action continues up to a point → Wait until Monday (means keep waiting) RULE 6 — PREPOSITION AFTER ADJECTIVES (Fixed Pairs): • Afraid OF, Capable OF, Fond OF, Proud OF • Angry WITH (person), Angry AT (situation) • Married TO, Devoted TO, Addicted TO • Good AT, Bad AT, Surprised AT • Interested IN, Engaged IN, Absorbed IN ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

3.Exam Patterns

What examiners ask — read before attempting PYQs

— WHAT SSC CGL ASKS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ SSC CGL mostly tests prepositions in two ways: 1. Error Spotting — Find the wrong preposition in a sentence 2. Fill in the Blank — Choose the correct preposition from 4 options Most tested topics: IN/ON/AT, SINCE/FOR, BETWEEN/AMONG, fixed preposition pairs with adjectives and verbs. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

4.Shortcuts

Use these to save 30–60 seconds per question

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ TRICK 1 — The 'POT' Formula for Time: P = Point → AT | O = On surface/day → ON | T = Time period → IN TRICK 2 — SINCE/FOR test: Ask: Is it a point? → SINCE. Is it a stretch? → FOR. 'I have lived here since 2015.' (2015 = point) ✓ 'I have lived here for 9 years.' (9 years = stretch) ✓ TRICK 3 — BETWEEN/AMONG Shortcut: Count the number of people or things. If count = 2, use BETWEEN.

If count = 3+, use AMONG. SSC loves to swap these in error spotting. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

5.Worked Example

Solve this step-by-step before moving on
1
Step 1

Look at what follows the blank — 'five years'. Is it a point in time or a duration? → It is a DURATION (a stretch of time).

2
Step 2

Apply the rule → Duration = FOR.

3
Step 3

'Since' needs a point (since 2019, since Monday). 'Five years' is not a point. Answer: (B) for ✓ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ WORKED EXAMPLE 2 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Question (Error Spotting): The prize was divided (A) between (B) the four (C) winners equally. (D) No error.

1
Step 1

Identify the key word — 'between'.

2
Step 2

Ask: How many winners? → FOUR. That is more than two.

3
Step 3

Apply rule → BETWEEN = 2 only. For more than two, use AMONG.

4
Step 4

Replace 'between' with 'among'. Answer: Error is in Part (A). Correct sentence: 'The prize was divided AMONG the four winners equally.' ✓ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ NUMBER 1 COMMON TRAP — STUDENTS BEWARE ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ The BIGGEST mistake students make is using 'since' with a period of time. WRONG: 'She has been sick since three days.' CORRECT: 'She has been sick for three days.' Also: Never use 'from' in place of 'since' in perfect tenses. WRONG: 'I have been waiting from morning.' → CORRECT: 'I have been waiting since morning.' SSC CGL frequently traps students with this exact error in the error spotting section. Always check: point or period?

Key Points to Remember

  • A preposition connects a noun/pronoun to another word and shows time, place, or relationship.
  • FORMULA — AT (exact point/time) → ON (day/surface) → IN (period/enclosed space): smaller to bigger.
  • SINCE + Point of Time (since 2010, since Monday) | FOR + Period of Time (for 3 hours, for years).
  • BETWEEN is used for exactly TWO people or things; AMONG is used for THREE or more.
  • BY means 'on or before a deadline'; UNTIL/TILL means 'continuing up to a point'.
  • Fixed pair rule — Angry WITH a person, Angry AT a situation: never swap these.
  • Fixed pair rule — Afraid OF, Capable OF, Proud OF, Fond OF all take 'of'.
  • Fixed pair rule — Good AT, Bad AT, Surprised AT, Interested IN: learn these by heart.
  • TRICK — If a period/duration follows the blank, the answer is almost always FOR, not SINCE.
  • Never use 'from' in place of 'since' in sentences with perfect tenses (has been, have been, had been).

Exam-Specific Tips

  • SINCE is used with the Present Perfect or Past Perfect tense, never with Simple Past alone.
  • BETWEEN must be followed by two items joined by 'and', not 'or' — e.g., between Ram and Shyam.
  • AMONG is always used when distributing something among more than two people or things.
  • Married TO is correct; 'Married with' is always wrong — a frequent SSC CGL trap.
  • Prepositions are never followed by a verb in base form; they are always followed by a gerund (verb+ing) — e.g., 'She is good at singing', not 'at sing'.
  • BY + passive agent shows doer of action (The letter was written by Ram); WITH + instrument shows tool used (written with a pen).
  • IN the morning / IN the afternoon / IN the evening — but AT night (no 'the'): 'at night' is a fixed exception.
Practice MCQs

Prepositions — Practice Questions

58graded MCQs · easy to hard · full solution & trap analysis · showing 20 of 58

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Practice 1easy

In the following sentence, identify the error (if any): The committee has decided (A) / to proceed with (B) / the project despite (C) / of the budget constraints. (D) / No error (E)

Practice 2easy

In the following sentence, one part is underlined. Identify the part that contains an error. The team has been working (A) / at the project (B) / for the past three months (C) / to meet the deadline. (D) / No error (E)

Practice 3easy

In the following sentence, four parts are underlined. Identify the part that contains an error. The students are looking forward (A) / to attending (B) / the seminar at (C) / the university auditorium. (D) / No error (E)

Practice 4easy

In the following sentence, four parts are underlined. Identify the part that contains an error. The manager insisted (A) / on the employees completing (B) / their reports before (C) / the deadline. (D) / No error (E)

Practice 5easy

In the following sentence, four parts are underlined. Identify the part that contains an error. The research team is working (A) / towards developing (B) / a solution for (C) / the environmental crisis. (D) / No error (E)

Practice 6easy

In the following sentence, identify the error (if any): The students are looking forward to (A) / attend the annual (B) / conference scheduled (C) / for next month. (D) / No error (E)

Practice 7easy

In the following sentence, identify the error (if any): The report focuses on (A) / the challenges faced by (B) / the organisation in (C) / adapting to new technologies. (D) / No error (E)

Practice 8easy

Choose the correct preposition to fill in the blank: She has been waiting ___ the bus stop for nearly an hour.

Practice 9easy

In the following sentence, one part is underlined. Identify the part that contains an error. The report is based (A) / on the data (B) / which was collected (C) / during the survey in last month. (D) / No error (E)

Practice 10easy

In the following sentence, four parts are underlined. Identify the part that contains an error. The committee members agreed (A) / to work on (B) / the project during (C) / the next three months. (D) / No error (E)

Practice 11easy

In the following sentence, identify the error (if any): The research team is working at (A) / solving the problem (B) / related to (C) / environmental pollution. (D) / No error (E)

Practice 12easy

In the following sentence, one part is underlined. Identify the part that contains an error. The manager insisted (A) / on the employees (B) / completing their reports (C) / before the deadline. (D) / No error (E)

Practice 13easy

In the following sentence, four parts are underlined. Identify the part that contains an error. The company has invested (A) / in new technology (B) / to improve (C) / productivity at the workplace. (D) / No error (E)

Practice 14easy

Choose the correct preposition to fill in the blank: The train will arrive ___ the station at 9 o'clock.

Practice 15easy

In the following sentence, one part is underlined. Identify the part that contains an error. The committee has agreed (A) / to the proposal (B) / which was submitted (C) / by the finance department. (D) / No error (E)

Practice 16easy

In the following sentence, one part is underlined. Identify the part that contains an error. The organisation is committed (A) / towards providing (B) / quality education (C) / to underprivileged children. (D) / No error (E)

Practice 17easy

In the following sentence, one part is underlined. Identify the part that contains an error. The report focuses (A) / on the issues (B) / related with environmental (C) / degradation in urban areas. (D) / No error (E)

Practice 18easy

In the following sentence, one part is underlined. Identify the part that contains an error. The manager insisted (A) / on the employees (B) / completing the project (C) / before the deadline. (D) / No error (E)

Practice 19easy

In the following sentence, one part is underlined. Identify the part that contains an error. The students are looking forward (A) / to attending (B) / the conference (C) / in next month. (D) / No error (E)

Practice 20easy

In the following sentence, one part is underlined. Identify the part that contains an error. The committee has agreed (A) / to the proposal (B) / that was submitted (C) / by the research team. (D) / No error (E)

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60-Second Revision — Prepositions

  • Remember: AT = exact time/place, ON = day/date/surface, IN = period/month/year/enclosed space — memorise A-O-I.
  • Formula: SINCE + Point of Time | FOR + Period of Time — check what follows the blank before answering.
  • Trap: Using 'since' with durations like 'three days' or 'two hours' is WRONG — always use FOR with durations.
  • Rule: BETWEEN = 2 exactly | AMONG = 3 or more — SSC swaps these in error spotting, catch it instantly.
  • Remember fixed pairs: Married TO, Angry WITH (person), Good AT, Afraid OF, Interested IN — no variation allowed.
  • Trap: 'from' cannot replace 'since' in perfect tense sentences — 'waiting from morning' is always wrong.
  • Rule: A preposition is always followed by a noun, pronoun, or gerund (verb+ing), never a base verb.
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