English Language and Grammar
English Language and Grammar tests sentence-level correctness: tenses, subject-verb agreement, articles, prepositions, active and passive voice, reported speech, plus vocabulary through synonyms, antonyms, idioms and spelling.
Core rules
- Agreement: "one of + plural noun" takes a singular verb; "a number of" takes a plural verb while "the number of" takes a singular verb.
- Tenses: since and for pair with the present perfect; time clauses use the present for future meaning ("when he comes").
- Articles depend on sound, not spelling: a university, a one-rupee coin, an hour, an MLA.
- Passive voice: the object becomes the subject, and the verb becomes a form of be plus the past participle.
- Reported speech: present shifts to past, "this" becomes "that", "tomorrow" becomes "the next day".
Worked example
"One of my friends ___ in Jaipur." (live / lives) Reasoning: the head of the subject is "One", which is singular. The phrase "of my friends" is a prepositional modifier and does not control the verb. The correct form is therefore "lives".
Traps
- Proximity error: letting the verb agree with the noun nearest to it rather than the real subject.
- Choosing articles by letter instead of sound, giving "an hotel" or "a hour".
- Double comparatives such as "more better" or "most fastest".
- Reading idioms literally, for example taking "a piece of cake" as food.
- Ignoring spelling traps: receive, separate, occasion, government.