Test: Spotting Errors- 3 - CAT MCQ

Who's vs whose—whose is the possessive of who. 'many features' is plural, hence the verb has to be the plural 'have.'

The OECD is singular (that is why the verb is 'expects' rather than expect; the pronoun has to be consistent, hence its is necessary- their is incorrect, 'mostly rich members' is correct, 'their most rich members' is vague, 'from' needs to be followed by 'to', not 'and.' Option 4 corrects these errors.

Since the subject is 'the blame'—the verb has to be singular "has ', 'pinned on' is correct idiom. 'A more calorific diet' is parallel with 'the spread of ..' and a lack of ...' Hence option 4 is faulty parallelism.

Portions (per cent, fractions etc..) the verb will agree with the noun what follows the o f (50 of the people come from ..... 50% of the money comes from ... etc) In this sentence the n noun is machines; hence, the verb 'use' is correct. When there is already a comma in any of the punctuation that replaces a conjunction has to be a semicolon. In the above sentence, there is no conjunction. Option 3 makes the sentence incorrect because the sentence is not saying "launched in 2001 in America." "The proportion..."is the subject in the next clause; hence, the verb has to be singular 'is'.

Faulty parallelism in all the other options.

Tense inconsistency. The lesson of the past decade has to be either " is ' or ' was ' , hence had been is eliminated. The option with was (1) continues the sentence into the present tense and is illogical. The consistent present tense in option 2 makes the whole idea a fact.( simple present tense is used to state facts)

The verb 'says' and the pronoun 'its' are consistent with the subject "The Beijing Language and Culture University Press".

Commas and periods generally go inside the quotation marks (there are situations in which they are outside). A semicolon has no place in this sentence. The comma after us, helps to remove the ambiguity that may arise "us as well" or "listen .. as well." Adding of Karzai is better followed by a colon than a comma. A comma would suffice if it was "adding to Karzai".

The first part of the sentence is a modifying phrase (subject modifier); the correct subject is 'private sector', 'laid off' is teh correct past tense of 'lay off'.

The subjunctive mood (If I were.) - "in grammar, subjunctive mood designates the mood of a verb used to express condition, hypothesis, contingency, possibility, etc., rather than to state an actual fact: distinguished from imperative, indicative." Also, in modern English "If I was you ..." is completely incorrect. If.... then as a conjunction is best avoided, though it is not always incorrect; 'if' would suffice in most situations.

In A 'repeated again' is redundant, 'repeated' is correct. In C, 'sentenced one year..' is incorrect; 'sentenced to one year..' will make it correct. In D, its is used instead of it's.

In B, The verb 'sit' for the subject 'team' is incorrect. It should be 'sits'. In C, who's has to be replaced with 'whose'. In D agency's is incorrect, it should be agencies

A must include the definite article before US dollar—the US dollar. B has two errors: 'perceived as a monetary unit" and it's vs its. C has two errors: since 1920's is incorrect, it should be corrected to since the 1920s—the is necessary and no apostrophe for the plural of years.

Sentence A uses effluent (flowing out) instead of affluent (wealthy). B is correct—the collective noun the elite is considered as individuals, hence the plural verb is correct. C is not punctuated at all—it requires commas this way: "Vishakha Doshi, Director, Marketing & Communication, Entrack, distributors for Montblanc India says that people identify with the core values of such legends." D is incorrect in "each of the .... instrument." It should be "e a ch of the ... instruments."

A is incorrect in Just like—it should be "just as America's...". B is incorrect as "India's" needs an apostrophe. C is incorrect as it should read "in the middle of the Indian Flag". D is incorrect as it should read: ".... how much it is diminished by..."