Error Spotting and Sentence Improvement — The Fixed Scan Order

Error spotting and sentence improvement are one skill in two costumes. In error spotting a sentence is cut into three or four labelled parts and you name the part that breaks. In sentence improvement one portion is underlined and you choose a better version — or 'No improvement'. Both reward the same thing: knowing where English habitually breaks, so you look there first instead of reading the sentence four times over.

The habit that costs marks is reading for meaning. A sentence can mean exactly what it should and still be wrong. 'She returned back from Delhi' is perfectly clear and perfectly incorrect.

So stop reading and start scanning, in a fixed order: verb, preposition, pronoun, modifier, redundancy, article. Six passes of a few seconds each, always in the same sequence. The candidate who scans finds the error. The candidate who reads for meaning agrees with it and moves on.

1. Spot the part that contains the error: "She returned back from Delhi / last night / after a long journey. / No error"

2. Which of these verbs is correctly used WITHOUT any preposition after it?

3. Improve the bracketed part: "He is [senior than me] by two years."

4. Which sentence maintains parallel structure correctly?

5. Choose the completion that avoids a dangling modifier: "Walking along the beach, ______"

6. Which shows the correct order of adjectives?

7. Fill the blank: "Each of the students ______ been given a separate desk."

8. Which of the following is redundant and therefore incorrect?