Spotting Errors Questions for CDS

Subject-Verb Agreement

The verb must agree with the subject in number and person, not with the nearest noun. This is the most frequently tested error type in CDS. The trick is to identify the real subject, especially when phrases come between the subject and verb.

• Ignore phrases starting with: along with, as well as, together with, besides, in addition to — the verb agrees with the original subject only.
• Collective nouns like committee, jury, team take singular verbs when acting as one unit.
• Either/Neither, Each/Every, Anyone/Everyone always take singular verbs.
• Subjects joined by Either-or, Neither-nor: verb agrees with the closer subject.
• Titles of books, countries, amounts of money — always singular even if plural-looking. Example: Ten rupees is enough.

Articles: A, An, The

Articles cause a surprisingly high number of errors in CDS. The rule is about sound, not spelling. Use An before words with a vowel sound. Use The before unique things, previously mentioned things, and superlatives. Many sentences incorrectly use or omit articles before professions, institutions, or abstract nouns.

• An + vowel SOUND: an hour, an honest man, an MBA — H is silent so vowel sound comes first.
• A + consonant SOUND: a university, a European country — U sounds like YOO which is a consonant sound.
• No article before: languages, games, meals, subjects in general. Wrong: I like the cricket. Right: I like cricket.
• The is used before rivers, mountain ranges, oceans, groups of islands, newspapers.
• Superlatives always need The: She is the best student.

Tense Errors

CDS tests whether you can spot inconsistent tenses within a sentence and violations of sequence of tense rules. Pay attention to time expressions — they are strong clues to which tense is correct.

• Past perfect (had + V3) is used for the earlier of two past events: He had left before she arrived.
• Simple past is used with time expressions: yesterday, ago, last year, in 1990.
• Present perfect cannot be used with definite past time: Wrong: I have seen him yesterday. Right: I saw him yesterday.
• Stative verbs (know, believe, want, seem, own, belong) are NOT used in continuous tenses.
• If clause with past tense: If I were rich (not was) — subjunctive mood for hypothetical situations.

Pronoun Errors

Pronouns must agree with their antecedents in number, gender, and person. CDS regularly tests reflexive pronouns, the use of who versus whom, and pronoun-antecedent agreement with indefinite pronouns.

• Everyone, anybody, nobody, someone — use singular pronoun: Everyone must do his duty.
• Who = subject form, Whom = object form. Trick: Replace with he/him. If he fits, use who. If him fits, use whom.
• Reflexive pronouns (myself, yourself) cannot be used as subjects: Wrong: Myself will do it. Right: I myself will do it.
• Between you and me — always use object pronouns after prepositions, never I.
• It is I who am right — verb agrees with who, which refers to I.

Preposition Errors

Prepositions are tested heavily in CDS through fixed phrases and idiomatic expressions. You cannot always logic your way through these — memorisation of common prepositional phrases is essential.

• Differ from (things), Differ with (persons): Opinions differ from mine. I differ with you.
• Married to (not with): She got married to him.
• Blind of one eye, blind in both eyes — fixed expressions.
• Confident of, Concerned about, Angry with a person, Angry at a thing.
• Compare to = show similarity between unlike things. Compare with = examine differences between similar things.

Conjunction and Parallelism Errors

CDS tests whether correlative conjunctions are used in the correct paired structure, and whether items in a list are parallel in form. Parallelism means matching grammar: nouns with nouns, verbs with verbs.

• Correlative pairs must be balanced: Either-or, Neither-nor, Not only-but also, Both-and.
• Wrong: Not only he is brave but also honest. Right: He is not only brave but also honest.
• Parallel structure: She likes singing, dancing, and to paint — wrong. Should be: singing, dancing, and painting.
• Hardly/Scarcely is followed by when, not than: Hardly had he sat down when the phone rang.
• No sooner is followed by than, not when: No sooner did she leave than it rained.

• Choosing the nearest noun as the subject instead of the real subject — especially when long phrases separate subject and verb. Always trace back to the true subject.
• Confusing a university / an hour — aspirants go by spelling, not sound. Always test the actual pronunciation of the first letter.
• Using have/has with a specific past time expression like yesterday or last year. Present perfect and definite past time words never go together.
• Marking No Error when the sentence sounds fine conversationally — CDS tests formal grammar. Many common spoken usages are technically wrong.
• Missing the Neither-nor / Either-or placement trap: the correlative must appear directly before the element it modifies, not earlier in the sentence.

• PASTA rule for Subject-Verb Agreement traps: Phrases, Along with, Similarly, Together with, As well as — all these are ignored when finding the subject for verb agreement.
• SWAN verbs never swim in continuous tense: See, Want, Appear, kNow — stative verbs never take -ing form.
• HIM trick for who/whom: Replace with him. Him ends in M, Whom ends in M — if him fits in the sentence, use whom.
• Hardly-WHEN, No sooner-THAN — remember HW and NT like initials: Hard Work Never Tires (HW-NT).

• CDS English paper has about 10-15 Spotting Error questions. Each carries equal marks and there is negative marking of 0.33, so do not guess randomly. Skip if genuinely unsure.
• Read the full sentence first as one unit, then read each underlined part separately. Your ear often catches the error on the first reading before your brain overanalyzes.
• No Error is a valid and frequently correct option in CDS — approximately 2-3 questions in a set genuinely have no error. Do not force-fit an error.
• Subject-Verb Agreement and Tense errors together account for roughly 50 percent of all Spotting Errors in CDS PYQs. These two areas deserve the most preparation time.
• Preposition questions in CDS are often phrase-based, not logic-based. Spend 10 minutes daily reading a list of fixed prepositional phrases in the weeks before the exam — it pays disproportionate returns.