English Language
English Language in the EPFO SSA paper tests grammar and usage, vocabulary, reading comprehension, error detection, fill-in-the-blanks and cloze. Questions are short, so accuracy and elimination matter more than speed-reading.
Core rules
- Subject-verb agreement: the verb follows the grammatical subject, not the noun nearest to it. In 'The list of applicants is ready', 'list' is singular.
- Fixed prepositions: comply with, consist of, capable of, prefer to, married to.
- Error detection: scan article, tense, pronoun, subject-verb agreement and parallelism in that order.
- Cloze: read the passage once for tense and tone before filling any blank.
- Vocabulary: learn word families, opposites and one-word substitutions in context.
Worked example
Choose the correct verb: 'Each of the officers ___ submitted the report.' The subject is 'Each', which is singular; 'of the officers' is a prepositional phrase. Correct: 'has submitted'. Reasoning: remove the phrase and test 'Each has submitted'.
Traps
- 'Neither...nor' takes the verb according to the nearer subject.
- Collective nouns take a singular verb when the group acts as one unit.
- In comprehension, an option can be factually true but not supported by the passage.
- In error detection, do not rewrite a correct sentence; fix only the underlined error.