📘 English Grammar Rules with Tricks for Government Exams (2025)
📌 1. Subject-Verb Agreement
Rule: A verb must agree with its subject in number and person.
Trick: Ignore words that come between the subject and verb.
✅ Example: The bouquet of flowers is beautiful.
❌ Common Error: The students was playing. → Wrong!
✔️ Correct: The students were playing. ✅
📌 2. Tenses
Rule: Tense should match the time and context of the sentence.
Trick: Use signal words like “yesterday”, “now”, “tomorrow” to identify the right tense.
Example: He had completed the work before the deadline.
- Simple Present: Habitual actions (She reads daily.)
- Simple Past: Completed action (He went to school.)
- Present Perfect: Recent actions (I have finished the test.)
📌 3. Active and Passive Voice
Rule: In passive voice, the object becomes the subject of the sentence.
Trick: Use “was/were + past participle” to form passive.
Example: Active: The teacher gave homework.
Passive: Homework was given by the teacher.
📌 4. Direct and Indirect Speech (Narration)
Rule: Pronouns and tenses change in indirect speech.
Trick: Present tense → Past; Today → That day; Will → Would
Example: He said, "I am going home." → He said that he was going home.
📌 5. Articles (a, an, the)
Rule: Use “a” before consonant sounds and “an” before vowel sounds.
Trick: Look at the sound, not the spelling.
Example: An hour ✅ (H is silent)
The: Use for something specific or already mentioned. (The sun, the moon, the Taj Mahal)
📌 6. Prepositions
Rule: Prepositions link nouns/pronouns to the rest of the sentence.
Common Pairs:
- Interested in
- Good at
- Depend on
- Angry with
Example: She is interested in music. ✅
📌 7. Conjunctions
Rule: Conjunctions connect two clauses logically.
Trick: Don’t use “Although... but” in the same sentence.
Example: Although he was ill, he went to school. ✅
📌 8. Question Tags
Rule: Use a negative tag with a positive sentence and vice versa.
Example: You are coming, aren’t you? ✅
📌 9. Common Confusing Words
- Accept (receive) vs Except (excluding)
- Advice (noun) vs Advise (verb)
- Its (possessive) vs It’s (it is)
- Effect (result) vs Affect (influence)
📌 10. Error Spotting Tips
- ✔️ Always check subject-verb agreement first
- ✔️ Look for incorrect tenses and prepositions
- ✔️ Articles and modifiers are common traps
- ✔️ Scan for double negatives (e.g., “didn’t saw”) ❌
📚 Best Grammar Topics for Govt Exams
- ✔️ Parts of Speech
- ✔️ Sentence Improvement
- ✔️ Fill in the Blanks
- ✔️ One Word Substitution
- ✔️ Synonyms & Antonyms
- ✔️ Cloze Test (Grammar + Comprehension)
📌 For regular updates, visit A2Z Govt Exam Updates. Stay informed. Stay ahead.
