Important Last-Minute English Grammar Rules for IBPS Clerk Prelims

IBPS Clerk is just around the corner, and with each passing day, the level of anxiety among candidates also increases. What you should do during this time is revise formulas, tricks or shortcuts to solve questions. Generally, students will focus on the quants and reasoning section, and English will be underestimated. But the English section can become the game-changer if prepared accordingly. In this blog, we are going to discuss some last-minute English grammar rules for IBPS Clerk Prelims.  

Why should you focus on grammar rules?

The English section is almost based on grammar rules; it tests your command over grammar, vocabulary and comprehension. The questions were grammar rules, including error detection, sentence improvement, cloze tests, Fill-in-the-blanks and para jumbles. These types of questions demand strong grammar knowledge and a good reading speed, along with comprehension. 

Important Last-minute Grammar Rules for IBPS Clerk Prelims

In this section, we are providing important information about the last-minute grammar rules for IBPS Clerk Prelims exam. 

Subject-verb Agreement 

One of the most common errors that you can find in error detection questions is subject-verb agreement. So that the verb in the given sentence agrees with or justifies the number and person of the subject. Look for phrases such as each of, none of, either/neither, which are singular and take singular verbs. 

Example: The list of items are on the desk. (Incorrect)

                The list of items is on the desk. (Correct)

Tenses 

Often, students mix past, present and future tenses into a single sentence, and this can lead to grammatical errors that lead to loss of marks in the examination. Whenever you’re solving error detection, make sure that you look out for verbs that match the timeline of the sentence. 

Example: He went to the market and buys vegetables. (incorrect use of tenses)

                He went to the market and bought vegetables. ( correct use of tenses)

Articles

Oftentimes, students miss the articles, especially in error detection questions. Do not put articles by just looking at the spellings; articles are used based on the pronunciation of the words. Some article rules that are important from an exam point of view are-

• Use ‘a’ before consonant sounds: a book, a university (sounds like ‘you’).
• Use ‘an’ before vowel sounds: an apple, an hour.
• Use ‘the’ for specific nouns: the sun, the Taj Mahal.

Prepositions 

Prepositions follow logical patterns, which often makes them tricky. We suggest you memorise common prepositional phrases like “interested in,” “capable of,” “afraid of,” “fond of,” etc., to avoid any confusion. 

Pronoun-Antecedent Agreement

Pronoun–Antecedent Agreement means a pronoun must match the noun it replaces in number (singular/plural), gender, and person. If the noun is singular, use a singular pronoun; if plural, use a plural pronoun. The singular words are each, everyone, and anyone. For gender-neutral references, the nouns that are joined by and then use or/nor match the nearer noun.

Examples:

• Neither the teacher nor the students did their homework.

Modifiers and Their Placement

A modifier is a word, phrase, or clause that describes or gives more information about another word in a sentence. Modifiers can be adjectives, adverbs, or descriptive phrases. If you misplace the modifiers, it can change the whole context of the sentence. 

Examples are – Adjective as a Modifier (to describe a noun)
The blue car is mine.
Here, “blue” modifies “car”, or you can say here blue gives the detail regarding the colour of the car. gave details about the car. 

Parallelism

Parallelism means that similar ideas should be expressed in the same way. This concept is basically used in sentence improvement or replacement-type questions. 

For example: She likes reading, to swim, and jogging. In this sentence, all the verbs are in different forms and hence are not following the parallel rule as “reading” is a gerund, “to swim” is an infinitive, and “jogging” is again a gerund. The correction of the sentence is She likes reading, swimming, and jogging.

Conditional Sentences

Conditionals express hypothetical situations and require specific verb forms. Here, you should match the given condition with the correct verb tense. 

Examples: In this example, we have used all three variations of tenses. 

• Type 1: If he studies, he will pass.
• Type 2: If he studied, he would pass.
• Type 3: If he had studied, he would have passed.

Conclusion

In this article, we have explained the most important last-minute English grammar rules to be followed while solving the English section. We suggest that you revise the above rules before the examination for better performance in the English section. To practice or revise concepts, you can take our test series. 

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