Twenty Golden Sentence Correction Rules For SSC CGL Exam

As the Institute for Best SSC Coaching in Jaipur, Power Mind Institute approaches English grammar from a practical exam perspective. It specifically concentrates on training candidates to spot erroneous sentences independently, preferably in the first reading itself. Learning basic grammatical concepts is necessary to attain such a level of proficiency. However, one can get started by memorizing a few common grammatical rules. The knowledge of such rules does come in handy at the time of attempting any competitive exam, where one is tested on English language proficiency.

Golden Sentence correction Rules

Rule No. 1: Certain nouns have a singular form, but they always take plural verbs, like, Gentry, Police, People, Cattle etc.

· Wrong: The cattle was grazing in the field yesterday.

· Right: The cattle were grazing in the field yesterday.

Rule No. 2: If a collective noun doesn’t act as a single unit, then it takes a plural verb.

· Wrong: The medical panels was divided in its diagnosis.

· Right: The medical panels were divided in their diagnosis.

 Rule No. 3: ‘One of, each of, none of,’ are followed by nouns in the plural form.

· Wrong: One of the player was not on the field.

· Right: One of the players was not on the field.

Rule No.4: The possessive of the pronoun ‘one’ is ‘one’s’ and not ‘his or their’.

· Wrong: One must do his duty towards humanity.

· Right: One must do one’s duty towards humanity.

Rule No. 5: Prepositions aren’t used with words outside, inside, uptown, downtown, downstairs and upstairs.

· Wrong: You must go to outside immediately.

· Right: You must go outside immediately.

Rule No. 6: If a recurrent action becomes irritating or problematic, present continuous tense should be used instead of simple present tense.

· Wrong: He always hits me without any reason.

· Right: He is always hitting me without any reason.

Rule No.7: It is preferable not to split the infinitive (to+V1)

· Wrong: She liked to never play basketball.

· Right: She never liked to play basketball.

Rule No. 8: If two actions in a sentence are to take place in future, the conditional clause uses the simple present & the other clause uses the simple future.

· Wrong: If she will come to Jaipur, we will meet her.

· Right: If she comes to Jaipur, we will meet her.

Rule No. 9: For the conditional that refers to an impossible past condition & its likely result in the past, we use: Past Perfect & Would+Have+3rd form of Verb. Past Perfect is always used for the impossible past condition. Would+Have+3rd form of Verb is used for the likely result.

· Wrong: If Joan would have invited me to the party, I would have met her.

· Right: If Joan had invited me to the party, I would have met her.

Rule No. 10: If two actions are shown to happen in the past time, 

· Wrong: By the time we reached there, he left the place.

· Right: By the time we reached there, he had left the place

Rule No. 11: In the case of comparisons, the subject of a sentence must be compared with another subjective pronoun or a subject. An objective pronoun mustn’t be compared with the subject of a sentence.

· Wrong: Neha is as honest as him.

· Right: Neha is as honest as he.

Rule No. 12: We must never use ‘not’ with ‘until’ & ‘unless’.

· Wrong: The workers will not leave the building until their demands are not met.

· Right: The workers will not leave the building until their demands are met.

Rule No. 13: Question tags are negative if the sentence is positive & vice versa.

· Wrong: You don’t respect me, don’t you?

· Right: You don’t respect me, do you?

Rule No. 14: The words barely, scarcely, hardly, and rarely carry the force of a negative. So, the question tag used after them should be positive.

· Wrong: It is barely worth the price, isn’t it?

· Right: It is barely worth the price, is it?

Rule No. 15: Between is followed by ‘and’ & not ‘to’.

· Wrong: He is expected to arrive between 7 pm to 8 pm.

· Right: He is expected to arrive between 7 pm and 8 pm.

Rule No. 16: With plural nouns, we should use fewer, not less.

· Wrong: They have got less burgers than they need.

· Right: They have got fewer burgers than they need.

Rule No. 17: Lest mustn’t be used along with not. The only helping verb that will be used after lest is ‘should’.

· Wrong: Think carefully lest you should not commit a mistake.

· Right: Think carefully lest you commit a mistake.

Rule No.18: No sooner should be followed by than, not when.

· Wrong: No sooner had she graduated, when she got a reputed job.

· Right: No sooner had she graduated, than she got a reputed job.

Rule No. 19: The verb following ‘both (of)’ construction is always positive & plural. ‘Both’ isn’t used in negative structures.

· Wrong: Both of these options are not Right.

· Right: Both of these options are wrong.

Rule No. 20: You must not use the article a/an after kind of, type of, sort of etc.

· Wrong: What sort of an animal is that?

· Right: What sort of animal is that?

· Wrong: Shark is a type of a fish.

· Right: Shark is a type of fish.