Use These Tips to Master Your Error Spotting Skills In English for Competitive Exams

 Error spotting in the English language section is a significant topic that is generally asked in most competitive, banking, and government exams. To tackle the questions on this subject, you should have a strong grip on the grammar rules. With practice, you can easily master the tricks of spotting errors in English questions.

Fundamentally, a learner needs to develop decent control over the English language and vocabulary to master error spotting. In error spotting, you need to detect an error in the sentences. The error can be similar to nouns, pronouns, or other grammatical errors in the sentence. 

Regardless of whether you are a student giving a government exam, SAT, or any other competitive exam, error spotting skills are always important. So in this blog, we will share some tips you can use to master your skills in error-spotting in English language in any competitive exam.

Why Do Competitive Exams Include Error Spotting in English Section?

Phrases, words, and sentences are the underlying foundations of any language. Any error in using them can change a sentence’s meaning. An Error Spotting Test is included to assess a student's subject knowledge of grammatical forms and parts of speech.

Tips to Master Your Error Spotting Skills in English

Here are some effective tips that you can use to master your error spotting skills in English language section and ace any competitive exam with excellent scores;

1. Know Your Sentence Type

The first step to answering error-spotting questions correctly is to identify the type of sentence given to you in the question. Every sentence has a different structure, and by identifying the type of sentence, you can know about its structure and spot the error.

For Example, You are given the sentence “Where are the keys.” Since this is an interrogative sentence, the sentence must end with a question. Thus, the error in the sentence is the use of full-stop at the end. The correct form of the sentence will be “Where are the Keys?”

2. Placement of Punctuation Marks

Punctuation marks bring minor details to any sentence, but they are equally important to convey the correct meaning. Thus, questions with errors in punctuation marks are seen frequently in government and banking exams. Without the proper knowledge about punctuation marks, students can make incorrect answers.

For example, you are given two sentences-

• A) Its a beautiful garden

• B) It’s a beautiful garden

Here, sentence A is incorrect, while sentence B is correct. This is simply because sentence B uses punctuation marks properly while the error exists in sentence A.

3. Learn About the Exceptions

Many rules of grammar have special cases for them. Ensure you make a cautious note of each and every exception. Many questions in competitive exams depend on them.

For Example;

• A) I received the package a hour ago

• B) I received the package an hour ago

From the given two sentences, Sentence A is incorrect while Sentence B is correct. The error is in the usage of articles. In articles, the words beginning with vowel sounds are likewise gone before 'An'. Hour is articulated as 'our.' Subsequently, it turns into an hour.

4. Check the Pronoun

A text ought to constantly have one kind of pronoun in it. Assuming the pronoun changes any place in the center, it is an error. Such error spotting questions are common in the English language section of several competitive exams.

For example;

• One should not lie. He should constantly comply with the elders. - Incorrect

• One should not lie. One must constantly comply with the elders. - Correct

Here, the text begins with the pronoun 'One,' and should be kept up with throughout the text. The pronoun “One” is replaced with “He” in the first sentence; thus, it is an error.

5. Know about the Question Tags

A positive assertion will have a negative question tag, and a negative assertion will have a positive question tag. Likewise, the structure of a question tag is fixed. It begins with a comma after the primary sentence. Next, it has the positive or negative type of action word. This is trailed by the pronoun, and it closes with a question mark.

For example;

• You got your work done, isn't that right?

A positive assertion, negative tag.

• You didn't get your work done, did you?

The negative assertion, positive tag.

Lastly

Error spotting questions are a significant part of the English language section of any competitive exam. Such questions can be a great scoring opportunity for students once they learn to master such questions. We hope that the tips mentioned in this blog can help you to improve your error spotting skills in English language section and crack any exam easily.