English Language
English Language
The English section tests whether you can read a passage on banking, policy or the economy and answer precisely, and whether your grammar would survive an official letter or a circular. Expect reading comprehension (usually one long and one short passage), error spotting, sentence improvement, para jumbles, cloze test, fillers, synonyms/antonyms and idioms.
Core rules
- Subject-verb agreement: the verb follows the head noun, not the nearest noun. The number of accounts has risen (singular) vs A number of accounts have risen (plural). Each, every, either, neither and one of + plural noun take a singular verb.
- Parallelism: after not only...but also, either...or, both...and, keep the same grammatical form on both sides.
- Articles: an before a vowel sound (an hour, an MLA, an NPA), a before a consonant sound (a university, a one-time settlement).
- Fixed prepositions: comply with, consist of, capable of, prefer X to Y, married to, discuss (never discuss about).
- Para jumbles: the opening sentence has no dangling pronoun or anaphora; find mandatory pairs and the concluding sentence before matching options.
Worked example
In the last three years, the number of farmers availing crop loans ______ (have/has) risen, and the bank ______ (has/have) opened 40 new branches. Reasoning: the head noun is number (singular), so has; farmers is only the object of of. In the second clause the subject is the bank (singular), so has. Had the sentence read A number of farmers..., the verb would be have.
Traps
- Picking a grammatically fine option that contradicts a fact in the passage; comprehension answers must come from the text, not from your own banking knowledge.
- Marking no error when only an article or preposition is wrong.
- Confusing synonyms with antonyms in the vocabulary questions.
- In cloze, ignoring the tense and tone set by the rest of the sentence.