Error Detection Tips & Practice Questions – Download Free PDF

The process of detecting errors in a sentence is a quite instinctive thing. If you have done enough of practice beforehand, you just read the sentence and bingo; you spot the error. But the way the level of difficulty has increased in banking exams that you may come across a sentence and despite reading it twice or thrice you are unable to spot the error. And for sure, you don’t want to let go of those precious marks.

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Error Detection – Rules to follow

Subject(s) and its agreement with verb(s)

Focus on the subject to see if this is singular or plural. While doing this, keep in mind that the number of subjects will be equal to the number of sentences the complex sentence can be broken into. Once done, check if the verb(s) of the sentence is/are in agreement with the subject(s).

Simple, Compound or Complex Sentence Check if the sentence is a compound or a complex one. Try breaking it into smaller parts and see if you can find the error.

Verb-Consistency In the case of a complex/compound sentence, check if different verbs are consistent throughout the sentence. There shouldn’t be verbs of different tenses in the same sentence unnecessarily.

Adjective and Adverb usage Take a look at the adjective and adverbs and see if they have been correctly used or not.

Articles, preposition and conjunction usage Check the usage of articles, prepositions, and conjunctions as well.

Parallelism and Redundancy Check for the issues of parallelism and redundancy. Parallelism implies that items in a series should have the same grammatical form. Redundancy means that all the elements of a sentence must have a purpose and no word should be extra.

Error Detection Tips & Practice Questions – Download Free PDF

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Error Detection Tips to Increase your Accuracy

In order to look for error detection, here are few tips you can look into:

• The tone of the given statement is to be analyzed. It can either be sarcastic, negative or positive etc. Keeping the whole scenario in mind it becomes easy to spot the error in sentence.
• Elimination approach is one of the quickest and easiest way to adopt as it is very much possible that an aspirant may not be knowing all the rules required. Thus, make use of the elimination technique when you are unable to detect the error.
• It is not mandatory that there will always be an error in the sentence, hence avoid making one from yourself.
• One must have a clear understanding of all the fundamental concepts and these should come handy while you are preparing for any such topic.

Keeping the above things in mind will definitely help you in solving error detection questions quickly and move to other sections. Also, to practice error detection questions we have come up with a free PDF including practice questions on Error Detection. To practice more on such type of questions, start taking mock tests. The post-mock test analysis will come up with detailed explanations of the questions you did incorrectly so that you don’t repeat the same mistake in the actual exam.

Error Detection Practice Questions

Type #1

Directions (Qs. 1-5): In the question given below, a sentence is given, divided into parts. One of the parts may contain an error. Identify the part that contains the error, and mark it as the answer. Ignore errors of punctuation. In case the sentence is correct as it is, mark option (e), that is, ‘No error’. Note – The words in bold are grammatically and contextually correct.

Question 1

Level – 1

Even the best researchers can seen years slip by without any significant results as a result of factors completely out of their hands such as faulty equipment or dwindling research budgets.

a) researchers can seen years slip by without

b) any significant results as a result of

c) factors completely out of their hands

d) such as faulty equipment or dwindling

e) No error

Ans: A

Solution: In A, replace SEEN with SEE as the modal verb CAN will take the base form of the main verb that follows it. Thus, A is the right answer.

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Question 2

Level – 1

Glaciers in the Hindu Kush Himalayan region, which spans eight countries in South Asia from Afghanistan to Myanmar, could loose more than a third of their volume by the end of the century.

a) Himalayan region, which spans eight

b) in South Asia from Afghanistan to Myanmar,

c) could loose more than a third of their

d) volume by the end of the century.

e) No error

Ans: C

Solution: In C, replace LOOSE with LOSE as the former means not firmly or tightly fixed in place. LOSE means to be deprived of something. Here, sentence talks about how the glaciers could lose much of their volume. Moreover, the modal verb CAN will take a main verb after it in its base form. LOOSE is an adjective. LOSE would fit in the context. Thus, C is the right answer.

Practice more on such type of questions

For more set of practice questions, download the complete PDF from the link given below:

Error Detection Tips & Practice Questions – Download Free PDF

We would advise all the aspirants preparing for upcoming examinations such as SBI Clerk 2021, SBI PO Prelims & RRB Clerk, RRB PO etc. must download this free PDF and start practicing questions on error detection topic. Variety of questions are asked from this topic in multiple examinations thus, one must practice varied types of questions. To practice more, practice English quizzes and mini mocks on both PracticeMock app and web now.