English - Grammar, Vocabulary and Comprehension
The English section of the PPSC Naib-Tehsildar paper tests functional grammar, precise vocabulary and short-passage comprehension. Questions are usually discrete sentences to be corrected, one-word substitutions, synonyms/antonyms, idioms, prepositions, and active/passive or direct/indirect conversion, plus a comprehension passage. Accuracy in the small rules earns more marks than reading speed.
Core rules worth memorising
- Agreement: One of the clerks is absent; The number of applications is rising; A number of applications are pending.
- Neither … nor and either … or take the verb of the nearer subject.
- Articles follow sound, not spelling: a university, a European, an hour, an MNA, an FIR.
- Fixed prepositions: comply with, deprive of, averse to, capable of, insist on, prefer X to Y, superior to.
- Reported speech shifts tense back one step and swaps this→that, here→there, tomorrow→the next day.
- One-word substitutions recur: ephemeral (short-lived), unanimous (all agreed), philanthropist, obsolete, inflammable.
Worked example
"Neither the Tehsildar nor the Patwaris ___ present at the head office." The subject set is Tehsildar (singular) and Patwaris (plural), joined by nor. The verb agrees with the nearer noun, so the answer is were, not was.
Traps that cost marks
- Treating every and as plural: Bread and butter is enough (one idea).
- Lie/lay, affect/effect, principal/principle, advice/advise.
- Dangling modifiers: Walking down the road, the tower was seen is wrong - the walker must be the subject.
- Double comparatives (more better) and double negatives.
- Idioms taken literally: to bury the hatchet means to make peace, not to hide an axe.