English Language
English Language in the Nainital Bank Clerk exam tests usable grammar, vocabulary and comprehension rather than literary knowledge. Questions commonly appear as reading comprehension, cloze test, error detection, sentence rearrangement, fillers and synonym–antonym pairs, so preparation should be question-type driven.
What each question type demands
- Reading comprehension: answers must be supported by the passage, not by outside facts.
- Cloze test: choose the word that fits both grammar and meaning; collocations matter.
- Error detection: check subject–verb agreement, tense, articles, prepositions, pronouns and parallelism.
- Para jumbles: hunt for pronouns, connectors such as however and therefore, and chronological signals.
- Fillers: a single word or pair must keep the sentence logical and idiomatic.
Rules worth drilling
A verb agrees with its subject, not with a noun in a phrase: The list of candidates is long. With either...or and neither...nor, the verb agrees with the nearer subject. One of + plural noun takes a singular verb. In not only ... but also, both parts must be parallel.
Worked example
One of the officers have submitted the report. The subject is one, not officers, so the verb should be has: One of the officers has submitted the report. The phrase of the officers is a prepositional modifier and cannot control the verb.
Traps that cost marks
Choosing an option because it sounds familiar; ignoring the exact question word such as except or not; marking an RC option that is true in real life but absent from the passage; confusing affect/effect and principal/principle; and leaving a sentence-rearrangement question without checking the opening and closing links.