Sentence Correction questions test your knowledge of correct grammatical usage and your sense of clear and economical writing.
Choose answers according to the norms of standard written English for grammar, word choice, and sentence construction.
Singular subjects must be paired with singular verbs; Plural subjects with plural verbs.
The below sentence is correct as singular noun is paired with singular verb.
Exercise: Identify if the below sentence is correct
Kunal, accompanied by his friends, were watching the movie.
Solution:
Let us now strike out the phrase which is a comma separated sandwich. The sentence becomes
Kunal, accompanied by his friends, were watching the movie
Kunal is a singular noun. Were is a plural verb. Hence the sentence is INCORRECT.
Incorrect: Kunal, accompanied by his friends, were watching the movie.
Correct: Kunal, accompanied by his friends, was watching the movie.
In the above statement, the singular noun does not agree with the plural verb.
Incorrect: His knowledge of several trades and domains make him successful.
Correct: His knowledge of several trades and domains makes him successful.
Incorrect: The mayor as well as his brothers are going to prison.
Correct: The mayor as well as his brothers is going to prison.
Collective nouns, such as family, majority, audience, and committee are singular when they act in a collective fashion or represent one group.
Example: A majority of the shareholders wants the plan to be approved.
Incorrect: Either my father or my brothers is going to sell the house.
Correct: Either my father or my brothers are going to sell the house.
Incorrect: Are either my father or my brothers responsible?
Correct: Is either my father or my brothers responsible?
An adjective describes a noun or pronoun and answers the questions: how many, which one, what kind?
An adverb describes either a verb or an adjective and answers the questions: when, where, how, why, in what manner, and to what extent?
Sense Verbs - sound, look, smell, taste, feel, seem
Unlike other verbs, sense verbs require adjective, not adverb as modifiers
Incorrect: The ice cream tastes deliciously.
Correct: The ice cream tastes delicious.
Incorrect: After she returned from England, she looked very well. (well is an adverb and it cannot agree with she which is a pronoun)
Correct: After she returned from England, she looked very good.
Parallelism is a rule of English grammar that demands consistency in a sentence's structure.
All nouns, all verbs, all infinitives, all gerunds, all prepositional phrases, or all clauses must agree.
Incorrect: All the students should learn cooking, washing and how to clean.
Correct: All the students should learn cooking, washing and cleaning.
"to" must be only before the first verb in the list, or before every verb in the list.
Correct: He likes to play, to eat and to sleep.
Correct: He likes to play, eat and sleep.
But the below is INCORRECT as to is missing before eat.
The correct form the above sentence is “She invited you and him for the party.”
Let us look at another sentence which is incorrect.
Correct: She was a better match for you. (The subject pronoun of her is she)
Example 1: Let us look at the following example. Is the usage of “me” correct?
Naren and me went to the hotel.
Strike out the rest of the pronouns other than the one in question. Naren and me went to the hotel.
Strike out the rest of the pronouns other than the one in question.
Now from the above we know me is used as a subject pronoun. But me is an object pronoun (refer above table). Hence the correct sentence is Naren and I went to the hotel
Example 2: The dinner was eaten by my sister and I.
The dinner was eaten by my sister and I.
Now we know that I is used as an object pronoun. But I is a subject pronoun. Hence the correct sentence is The dinner was eaten by my sister and me
Example 1: Whom/Who won the match?
To decide if we should use whom or who, try to answer a question based on the sentence.
Here Mr.X is acting as the subject. Hence we should use the subject pronoun “Who”. So the correct sentence is “Who won the match?”
Example 2: I don’t know who/whom Simran married.
Now let us follow the technique of framing a question and answering it.
Here Mr.X is acting as object. we should use the object pronoun “Whom”. So the correct sentence is “Whom did Simran marry?”
Pronouns also act like nouns regarding verb agreement. Hence pronouns should agree with the verb in number (singular or plural)
Example 1: In the below sentence, Everyone is a singular pronoun. Hence the correct sentence is “Everyone in the class has to come to the picnic”
Possessive pronouns like your, their, his, and hers should agree with other pronouns in the sentence.
Let us look at one more example.
Incorrect: Some of them will have to bring his own food.
Correct: Some of them will have to bring their own food.
"Objects" of to be verbs must be in the subject form.
Incorrect: I don't understand a word what you are talking about.
Correct: I don't understand a word that you are talking about.
Example: In the below sentence it is the photo which upsets the person.
Incorrect: He showed me a photo which upset me.
Correct: He showed me a photo that upset me.
Example: In the below sentence it is the action of tearing photo which upsets the person (note the comma used for separation)
Incorrect: He tore up the photo, that upset me.
Correct: He tore up the photo, which upset me.
Incorrect: One should have their weight checked every month.
Correct: One should have one's weight checked every month.
Correct: One should have his/her weight checked every month.
Correct: You should have your weight checked every month.
Tenses are covered in detail in a separate study guide. So we just provide two examples here.
Comparison is allowed only between similar things.
Idioms are phrases that do not necessarily follow general grammatical rules, but are nonetheless correct.
Idioms are to be used as such without any modifications (like the preposition etc should not be changed).
The only way to do well in Idiom based sentence correction is to learn as many idioms as possible.
