Sentence Correction Rules And Sentence Improvement Tips For Bank Exams

Sentence Improvement is one such topic which is asked in exams in almost all banking exams. This is one such topic which can help you to score great marks in examination. Be it prelims or mains, this is one such topic which will be asked in both the stages of the banking exams. One of the key step to ace this topic is to be well-verse in all the basic grammar rules. It is very important to know about the fundamentals of the grammar which must be memorize by heart to avoid any mistake in the exam. 

• Try to analyze the tone of the given statement or sentence. The tone  can be positive, negative, sarcastic, critical or analytical.  While keeping in mind the purview of the whole scenario, it become easy to spot the incorrect part of the sentence after a deep analysis.
• It is obvious that you might not be knowing every rule so use elimination before you do anything. This is one of the quickest approach & one can easily apply it to every situation. This is the best approach in a case when  you are unable to spot the exact error, eliminate.
• It is not mandatory that there should always be errors present in the sentence and hence don’t try to make it by yourself. Avoid this  tendency of always finding the errors and improving it.
• Of course, the knowledge of fundamental concepts should be there as it is very important and comes handy . And obviously, one must be hand in glove with the grammatical rules of Verbal.

Sentence Improvement Topics:

1. Subject-verb Agreement:  This is one topic from where the maximum questions are formed on this topic.  In this, It is necessary to consider the verb according to the subject.  As per the rules, Verbs should always be dependent on the subject or the vice-versa.  For example- if the subject is plural then verb should also be plural, and if it is singular, then the given verb will also be singular.

2. Idioms/Phrases: So this is one topic which often comes in the category of difficult questions because sometime the idiom is used in the sentence and because we have a habit of finding errors, no matter what it says, we tend to think that this part can be wrong. For example- As you sow so shall you reap…. Going by the grammatical rules, this idiom is grammatically incorrect because we can’t use ‘as’ followed by ‘so’ but we use it in the same form in which it is written and similar questions are asked  related to idioms/phrases  and we often end it finding mistakes in it or vice versa.

3. Misplaced Modifiers: This topic can cause confusion as one of the most common problems is where to place them because modifiers can cause confusion or unintentional humor in a sentence when they are placed too far from the noun they are modifying. For example Only sam wants pizza or Sam wants pizza only

 4. Wrong Comparisons: This can be very confusing and we end up doing silly mistakes. Sometimes we don’t understand the sentence structure and go with the flow and end up comparing things which are not logical or equivalent. Like, we have to compare furniture with furniture and persons with persons. It is not possible to  compare a table to a person.

 5. Relative noun and pronoun agreement: Another important point is that Pronoun should always have clear antecedent. If it fails to do so, then make sure it should be replaced by a proper noun. Likewise, in the noun agreement also, a person or thing can’t take a plural noun or vice-versa.

Banking Awareness: For All Banking Exams

Let’s Understand with the help of some example:

Direction: Which of the following phrases (I), (II), and (III) given below each sentence should replace the phrase printed in bold letters to make the sentence grammatically and contextually correct? Choose the best option among the five given alternatives that reflect the correct use of phrase in the context of the grammatically correct sentence. If the sentence is correct as it is, mark (e) i.e., “No correction required” as the answer.

Q24. In every cell of your body instead of your red blood cells exists a copy of your DNA.

(I) with the exceptions of

(II) except

(III) With the exception of

(a)Only (II) is correct

(b)Only (III) is correct

(c)Both (I) and (II) are correct

(d)Both (II) and (III) are correct

(e)No correction required

Sol. Option (d) is the correct choice as both the (II) and (III) statements can be substituted for ‘instead of’.  Use of ‘instead of’ is incorrect as it makes the sentence illogical and contextually incorrect. ‘Except’ and ‘with the exception of’ are the examples of circumlocution which is the use of many words when one will do.  Hence both can be substituted for each other.

Q25. She hates everybody and everything which remind her of her mistakes

(I)which have reminded

(II) who reminds her

(III) that reminds her

(a)Only (I) is correct

(b)Only (III) is correct

(c)Both (I) and (II) are correct

(d)Both (II) and (III) are correct

(e)No correction required

Sol.  Use ‘that’ in place of ‘which’. When two antecedents are connected by ‘and’ if one of them is a person and other an object  then we use ‘that’ as a relative pronoun. Therefore other options are incorrect.

Q27. He is far more serious practitioner now than he would have to be in the past.

(a) should have been

(b) used to be

(c) had to be

(d)  might have been

(e) No correction required

Sol. Replace “would have to be” with “used to be” to make the sentence contextually correct as whenever there is a reference of an activity in past “used to be” is used to make the sentence grammatically correct. Hence, option (b) is the correct choice.