Conditional Sentences Tips and Tricks for Government Exams

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Theory

Conditional sentences or conditional statements or conditional clauses in English grammar are a special type of statement structure which is used to to speculate, what might happen, what could have happened or for what we want would happen. So, to put it simply, Conditional sentences are the ‘Possibility’ or ‘Impossibility’ of a happening. The possibility or impossibility depends on the condition fulfilled or not. Conditional sentences depend on what the speaker presents as ‘Imagination’, ‘Contrary to the fact’, ‘Hypothetical’.

Types

• Imaginative Conditional Sentences
  These types of conditionals deal with the situation imagined to be. The time and opportunity to perform an action has passed and the subject wishes and imagines the action to be done in a given time only. This type is also known as ‘Predictive conditional’.
• Contrary to the Fact Conditional Sentences
  It is also known as ‘Counterfactual’. These types of conditionals deal with situations against reality. The subject imagines or wishes something about that could have been possible within time limits but now it cannot be.
• Hypothetical Conditional Sentences
  These types of conditionals, the subjects imagine to be but can never be a possibility.
• Factual Conditional Sentences
  These types of conditionals deal with the generic statements that happen or are bound to happen as a routine. These can also be ‘Universal truths’.

Solved Examples