As you all know that SSB psychological tests are more about writing continuously for two hours, these are series of tests you will face one by one; it’s a game of pen and paper. Though most of us would say that our grammar won’t really matter in psychological tests and it’s all about what you want to express, which is somewhat correct, these are very silly grammar mistakes that sometimes change the meaning of your sentence completely.
When the testing officer says that you just focus on expressing yourself and do not care about the beauty of expression, he didn’t mean that you can make grammatical mistakes and he will manage to understand it correctly, it is always better not to make a silly mistake.
So here are a few common grammar errors that you avoid while writing your TAT stories, SRT solutions, and WAT sentences.
- Lack of subject-verb agreement: Subjects and verbs must agree in number.
- Examples: The dog growls when he is angry. [singular]
- Dogs growl when they are angry. [plural]
- Using the wrong pronoun:
- Incorrect: Everybody must write their own poem.
- Correct: Everybody must write his or her own poem.
- Incorrect use of apostrophes
- Examples: Its vs. It’s – Its branches were falling. It’s a cold day. They’re vs. Their – They’re ready to leave. They are on their way.
- Missing comma or semi-colon in a compound sentence:
- Correct: She wanted to go, but she didn’t have a car.
- Writing run-on sentences:
- Incorrect: Tom is very cute, he is very popular at school. Correct: Tom is very cute. He is very popular at school.
- Misuse of homophones:
- Examples: Accept vs. Except – Accept means to receive. Except means to take out or leave out. There vs. Their – They wanted to go there. Their mother was not home.
- Using wrong verb tense:
- Examples: For present tense – We walk to the store. For past tense – We walked to the store. For future tense – We will walk to the store
- Using who vs. whom:
- Examples: Who is a subject pronoun. Who is driving the car? Whom is an object pronoun. With whom are you going to the party?
- Using double negatives:
- Incorrect: She doesn’t have no idea of what to do next. Correct: She doesn’t know what to do next.
- Using few vs. less:
- Use “few” or “fewer” for things you count. Use “less” for things you measure. Example: She wore out fewer shoes because she walked less miles.
Common Errors (Little Red Book)
The Little Red Book of Common Errors is about English usage I errors and how to avoid making them. The book is concerned with deviations from the standard use of English as judged by professional writers, editors, teachers and literate executives and personnel officers. The aim of this book is to help you avoid low grades, lost employment opportunities, lost business, and titters of amusement at the way you write or speak.
So, let’s find an error in this article, post your answers in the comment section below.
