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Error Identification | CrackEase

Error Identification

Rules for error identification combine many elements of grammar. In this topic you must identify grammatical errors in a sentence — often called sentence correction. Errors may arise from punctuation, wrong tense usage, subject–verb disagreement, incorrect articles, and more.

To solve these questions successfully you need a solid grounding in grammatical concepts and practice spotting common mistakes.

Rules For Error Identification

Keep the following points in mind when solving error-identification questions:

  1. Be well-versed with parts of speech — adverbs, adjectives, conjunctions, nouns, interjections, etc. These must be used correctly to make a sentence grammatical.
    Example:
    He cooks real good. (Incorrect)
    He cooks really well. (Correct)

  2. Check subject–verb agreement. The subject and verb must agree in number; disagreement indicates an error.

  3. Avoid lack of parallelism. Items in a list or comparison should use the same grammatical form.
    Incorrect: Students must go through both studying and how to write to get the desired result.
    Correct: Students must go through both studying and writing to get the desired result.

  4. Watch misplaced modifiers — modifiers should clearly relate to the word they modify.
    Incorrect: Swamped in mud, Roji rescued the puppy.
    Correct: Swamped in mud, the puppy was rescued by Roji.

  5. Avoid redundancy. Repetitive words or phrases make sentences incorrect or awkward.
    Incorrect: He will return back next week.
    Correct: He will return next week.

  6. Good knowledge of grammar, punctuation, and spelling is essential for accurate error identification.

  7. Ensure pronoun agreement — pronouns should agree in number and person with their antecedents.

  8. Know phrasal verbs and fixed expressions. A wrong preposition after a verb often causes errors. Familiarity with common phrases and idioms helps spot such mistakes.

  9. Use correct word choice and logical replacements when identifying errors — often a wrong word is the cause of the error.

1. Use of Question Tags

Question tags are short clauses placed at the end of a statement to form a question. The tag uses the auxiliary verb from the main clause and typically has opposite polarity.

Example:
The birds were flying in the same direction, weren’t they?

Note: A positive statement takes a negative tag and a negative statement takes a positive tag.

2. Use of Relative Pronouns

Relative pronouns link dependent and independent clauses. The most common relative pronouns are:

  1. who
  2. whom
  3. that
  4. which
  5. what

Example:
The boy who scored the highest run in the cricket tournament is my brother.

Here who connects the dependent clause to the main clause.

3. Transitive and Intransitive Verbs

Transitive verbs require an object; intransitive verbs do not.

Transitive example:
The director addressed the chairman before the meeting began.

Intransitive example:
Suresh's health recovered so quickly that even the doctor couldn't believe it. (No object follows recovered.)

Fact: Some verbs can be both transitive and intransitive depending on context:
The jury will continue the hearing after a break. (transitive)
The hearing continued after the break. (intransitive)

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