General English
What this domain tests
General English in AIIMS Paramedical assesses grammar, vocabulary, sentence correction, comprehension, and usage in a health-care context. Questions often test subject–verb agreement, articles, prepositions, tenses, voice, and commonly confused words.
Core rules
- A singular subject takes a singular verb: 'The number of cases has risen,' but 'A number of cases have risen.'
- Use 'fewer' for countable nouns (fewer beds), 'less' for uncountable nouns (less pain).
- Use 'between' for two entities and 'among' for more than two.
- An article is chosen by sound: 'an hour,' 'a university,' 'an X-ray.'
- In reported speech, shift tense back when the reporting verb is past: 'She said she was on duty.'
- Idioms: 'on the mend' = recovering; 'under the weather' = unwell.
Worked example
Choose the correct sentence: (A) The number of patients admitted to the hospital have increased. (B) The number of patients admitted to the hospital has increased. Reasoning: The grammatical subject is 'the number,' which is singular; 'of patients admitted to the hospital' is a prepositional phrase and does not change the verb. Therefore 'has' is correct. Answer: B.
Traps
'The number of' is singular, but 'a number of' is plural. Do not use 'less' with countable items. Do not assume a word ending in -s is plural ('news,' 'mathematics'). In comprehension, answer from the passage, not from personal medical knowledge.