English Language

English Grammar and Usage

1,563 Questions

English grammar and usage form a critical component of language sections in competitive exams. This hub provides practice with fill in the blanks, prepositions, and appropriate word selection. Strong grammar skills are necessary to score well in verbal ability tests.

Fill in the blanksPrepositions usageConjunctions selectionSentence correction

English Grammar and Usage Questions

Multiple choice

For most policy holders, the cost of health insurance continues to go up every year, even if free of hospitalisation claims and other sickness benefits.

  1. even if

  2. despite being

  3. even if they are

  4. although they may be

  5. even if remaining
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
C Correct answer
Explanation

The ‘policy holders’ is the true subject in the sentence because it is only the policy holders who can seek ‘hospitalisation claims and other sickness benefits’. So the proper pronoun to refer to the subject is ‘they’. ‘Even if’ expresses the required contrast better than ‘although’. Hence (3)

Multiple choice

For some reason the new market expert treats his audiences like imbeciles, talking to them like they were harebrained and unqualified to understand anything even slightly complicated.

  1. like imbeciles, talking to them like they

  2. as if they were imbeciles, talking to them like they

  3. like imbeciles, talking to them as if they

  4. as imbeciles, talking to them like they

  5. like imbeciles who
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
C Correct answer
Explanation

Wherever we have to choose between like and as, like is used to compare nouns and as is used to compare clauses. This usage is best exemplified by option (3). Hence (3)

Multiple choice

A multitude of tax incentives has led to a boom in manufacturing in the state; so abundant has capital been for new manufacturing ventures that investors regularly scour the state for sites at which to build new facilities.

  1. so abundant has capital been for new manufacturing ventures that

  2. capital has been so abundant for new manufacturing ventures, so that

  3. the abundance of capital for new manufacturing ventures has been such,

  4. such has the abundance of capital been for new manufacturing ventures that

  5. such has been an abundance of capital for new manufacturing ventures,
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
A Correct answer
Explanation

Options (3), (4) & (5) are incorrect as they do not follow correct idiom – ‘so...that’ or ‘such...that’. Between options (1) & (5) – ‘so...that’ is used for measure of something and goes with an adjective while ‘such...that’ is used for nature of something and is followed by an abstract noun. Hence (1).

Multiple choice

Radiometric dating reveals that the Palaeolithic sites in southern peninsula are nearly 1,000 years as old as any of their presumed northern predecessors.

  1. as old as any of their presumed

  2. older than any of their presumed

  3. as old as their presumed

  4. older than any of their presumably

  5. as old as their presumably
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
B Correct answer
Explanation

‘Presumably’ is an adverb and adverbs modify verbs, adjectives or adverbs. So, using ‘presumably’ before ‘northern predecessors’ is wrong, because ‘supposed’ is modifying ‘predecessors’ and not ‘northern’. Other options have grammatically flawed structures. Hence (2).

Multiple choice

After some experience, apprentice bankers can usually begin to discern, though not with absolute certainty, genuine currency notes from fake ones.

  1. genuine currency notes from fake ones

  2. genuine currency notes apart from fake ones

  3. between genuine currency notes and fake ones

  4. among genuine currency notes and fake ones

  5. whether currency notes are fake or genuine
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
C Correct answer
Explanation

'Discern between' is the better construct as it means differentiate between. Hence (3).

Multiple choice

Researchers still know little about how the Lassa virus is spread and why the disease it causes, Lassa fever, causes complications in only some subjects though it spares many others.

  1. though it spares

  2. where it spares

  3. despite sparing

  4. when sparing

  5. while sparing
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
E Correct answer
Explanation

What the sentence wants to convey is that the disease causes complications in some subjects but at the same time spares others. This sense of time is best conveyed by 'while' among the given conjunctions. Hence (5).

Multiple choice

Research organisations do not usually think of their patents as capital or reckon the interest income that would be generated if a portion of the capital would have been invested in some other form.

  1. be generated if a portion of the capital would have been

  2. have been generated if a portion of the capital would have been

  3. be generated if a portion of the capital were

  4. be generated if a portion of the capital was

  5. be generated if a portion of the capital had been
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
C Correct answer
Explanation

The sentence expresses a hypothetical situation or a wish best expressed in subjunctive mood using 'were'. Hence (3).

Multiple choice

Sheshadri became Ravi Shankar’s student and protégé when he was eighteen and, for a few years in the 1970’s, came as close to being a carbon copy of the sitar virtuoso in performance as anyone has ever come.

  1. as anyone has ever come

  2. as anyone ever had been

  3. as anyone ever had done

  4. that anyone ever did

  5. that anyone ever came
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
C Correct answer
Explanation

The correct usage of ‘as’ is ‘as ...... as’ which rules out options (4) and (5). Option (1) offers the best construct among the remaining options with ‘anyone’ followed by ‘has’ over ‘anyone’ followed by ‘ever’. Hence (3).

Multiple choice

Ryanggang is North Korea's poorest state, with an annual per capita income of $78, lower than in the most impoverished countries of the world.

  1. lower than in

  2. lower than that of

  3. and lower than that of

  4. which is lower than in
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
C Correct answer
Explanation

The sentence seeks to compare the income of a state using 'lower than' which can logically be compared only with income of other countries. This is the case only in option (3). Hence (3).

Multiple choice

Because the planet’s core is more solid there and thus better able to transmit shock waves, an earthquake of a given magnitude typically devastates an area 100 times greater on the Mars than it does on the Earth.

  1. of a given magnitude typically devastates an area 100 times greater on the Mars than it does on the Earth

  2. of a given magnitude will typically devastate 100 times the area if it occurs on the Mars instead of the Earth

  3. will typically devastate 100 times the area on the Mars than one of the comparable magnitude occurring on the Earth

  4. on the Mars will typically devastate an area 100 times greater than will a quake of comparable magnitude occurring on the Earth

  5. that occurs on the Mars will typically devastate 100 times more area than if it occurred with comparable magnitude on the Earth
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
D Correct answer
Explanation

The sentence is trying to express a possibility of something happening in the future so ‘will’ is the correct construct. Also ‘an area’ is the right object for the verb ‘devastate’. Hence (4).