UPSC Sentence Correction Test section is often where candidates pick up “easy” marks or lose them due to silly oversights.
UPSC loves to test your knowledge of subject-verb agreement, idiomatic expressions, and the subtle misuse of tenses.
Here are 10 practice questions modeled after recent UPSC trends, followed by the logical explanation for each.
UPSC Practice Set: Sentence Correction
Identify the error in the following sentences and rewrite them correctly:
- Each of the students have completed the assignment.
- I have seen him yesterday at the market.
- She is more cleverer than her sister.
- The furniture in the room are very old.
- Hardly he had reached the station when the train left.
- The news of the accident are very shocking.
- Supposing if it rains, what will we do?
- Neither the teacher nor the students was present.
- He is senior than me in the office.
- One should keep his promise.
Sentence Correction | Explanations and Key
1
Correct Sentence
Each of the students has completed the assignment.
Rule/Logic
Subject-Verb Agreement: “Each” is always singular.
2
Correct Sentence
I saw him yesterday at the market.
Rule/Logic
Tense: Use Simple Past for specific past time markers (like “yesterday”).
3
Correct Sentence
She is cleverer than her sister.
Rule/Logic
Double Comparatives: Avoid using “more” with an “-er” adjective.
4
Correct Sentence
The furniture in the room is very old.
Rule/Logic
Uncountable Nouns: “Furniture” is always singular.
5
Correct Sentence
Hardly had he reached the station when the train left.
Rule/Logic
Inversion: Sentences starting with “Hardly” require the verb before the subject.
6
Correct Sentence
The news of the accident is very shocking.
Rule/Logic
Nouns: “News” looks plural but takes a singular verb.
7
Correct Sentence
Supposing it rains, what will we do?
Rule/Logic
Redundancy: “Supposing” and “If” mean the same thing; don’t use both.
8
Correct Sentence
Neither the teacher nor the students were present.
Rule/Logic
Proximity Rule: With “Neither/Nor,” the verb agrees with the closest subject.
9
Correct Sentence
He is senior to me in the office.
Rule/Logic
Prepositions: Adjectives like senior, junior, and superior take “to,” not “than.”
10
Correct Sentence
One should keep one’s promise.
Rule/Logic
Pronoun Agreement: “One” must be followed by “one’s,” not “his/her.”
Pro-Tip for Sentence Correction
When you see a sentence that “sounds” wrong but you can’t pin it down, look for these three things in order:
- Subject-Verb Agreement (Is the subject singular or plural?)
- Tense (Is there a time marker like ‘since’, ‘already’, or ‘last year’?)
- Prepositions (Are common words like ‘between’, ‘among’, or ‘to’ used correctly?)
