General English: Grammar, Vocabulary and Comprehension
General English in JSSC CGL tests grammar in use rather than literary knowledge. Typical items are error spotting, sentence improvement, fill in the blanks with prepositions, articles and conjunctions, synonyms and antonyms, one-word substitutions, idioms, and a short reading comprehension passage with direct factual questions.
Grammar rules that earn marks
- Subject-verb agreement: the verb agrees with the real subject, not with a noun in a prepositional phrase.
- Tense sequence: use present perfect with since and for; use past perfect for the earlier of two past actions.
- Articles: a before consonant sounds, an before vowel sounds (an hour, a university).
- Prepositions: fixed pairs such as consist of, comply with, prefer to, capable of, insist on.
- Comprehension: answer strictly from the passage, not from general knowledge.
Worked example
Question: One of the boys ___ absent yesterday. Options: was / were. Reasoning: the subject is the singular pronoun one; the phrase of the boys is a prepositional modifier and cannot change the number of the verb. The singular past form is was. Answer: was. The same logic applies to each of the students is, neither of the answers is.
Traps that cost marks
- Collective nouns and phrases such as one of, neither of, each of, which take singular verbs.
- Confusing much and many, fewer and less, since and for.
- Reproducing idioms literally instead of using their fixed meaning.
- In comprehension, choosing an option that is true in the world but not stated in the passage.