English Language
English Language tests standard competitive grammar and usage: error spotting, sentence improvement, fill in the blanks, synonyms and antonyms, idioms, one-word substitution, spelling, active and passive voice, direct and indirect speech, sentence reordering, and a short comprehension passage. Kerala PSC favours conventional written grammar, so formal usage rather than colloquial phrasing is the target.
Rules tested repeatedly
- Subject–verb agreement: one of the + plural noun takes a singular verb; each, every, either and neither take singular verbs.
- Latin comparatives - senior, junior, superior, inferior, prior, preferable - take to, not than.
- Articles: an before vowel sounds (an hour, an MLA), a before consonant sounds (a university, a European).
- Since marks a point of time; for marks a duration.
- Fixed prepositions: discuss (no about), married to, listen to, comply with, consist of, capable of, prefer to.
- Reported speech shifts present to past, this to that, tomorrow to the next day.
- Idioms are fixed units: to let the cat out of the bag means to reveal a secret.
Worked example
Question: One of the boys ___ not submitted the assignment. Options: has, have. Reasoning: the grammatical subject is one, which is singular. The phrase of the boys is a prepositional modifier and cannot change the number of the verb. Answer: has. Second illustration: He is senior than me is wrong twice - senior takes to, and formal written English prefers the subjective case after the preposition in this construction. Correct form: He is senior to me.
Traps
- Homophones: affect and effect, its and it’s, principal and principle, stationary and stationery.
- Double negatives in sentence improvement items.
- Choosing a synonym that fits a different sense of the word, such as book meaning reserve rather than reading material.
- Missing errors of omission - a dropped article or preposition - because the sentence otherwise reads smoothly.
- Answering comprehension questions from general knowledge instead of the passage.