The fifteen rules that pay the most
Subject-verb agreement is the single most tested area. The verb must agree with the subject, not the noun closest to the verb. "The list of items was long" — subject is "list," not "items." Compound subjects joined by "and" take plural verbs. Subjects joined by "or" or "nor" take a verb that agrees with the nearer subject.
Tense consistency and sequence of tenses: once you establish a timeframe in a sentence, all verbs must stay consistent. Perfect tenses using "had" plus past participle are often tested in subordinate clause situations. "By the time they arrived, she had already left." The "had" signals past-before-past.
Articles: "a" before consonant sounds, "an" before vowel sounds — based on sound, not spelling. "An honest man" has a silent H. "A university" sounds like "you." Definite versus indefinite use is heavily tested in fill-in-the-blank sections.
Quick tips
- Subject-verb: verb agrees with the SUBJECT, not the nearest noun. "The list of items was long."
- Tense sequence: "had" + past participle = past-before-past. "She had left before they arrived."
- Articles: base on sound, not spelling. "An hour" (silent H), "A university" (sounds like Y).
- Or/Nor rule: verb agrees with the NEARER subject. "Neither the teacher nor the students were ready."
Prepositions, voice, and sentence correction
Preposition idioms are arbitrary — they must be memorised, not deduced. Common ones tested: interested in, agree with or agree to, consist of, differ from, interfere in, afraid of, rely on, insist on.
Active and passive voice: transforming between the two is always tested. Subject, verb, and object swap roles. "The manager signed the contract" becomes "The contract was signed by the manager." The tense of the passive be-verb must match the original tense.
Sentence correction questions test parallelism, dangling modifiers, and redundancy. Parallelism: all items in a list must use the same grammatical form. "She likes reading, writing, and to draw" is wrong — "drawing" fixes it.
in
Interested
of
Afraid
of
Consist
from
Differ
on
Rely
on
Insist
Vocabulary: which words to study
Synonyms and antonyms in competitive papers skew toward formal and literary vocabulary rather than academic jargon. Focus on words that appear in newspaper editorials: eloquent, fervent, placid, tenacious, perfidious, zenith, nadir. Learn them in sentences, not in bare lists.
Any word you encounter that you had to guess — add it to a running vocabulary list and review it weekly.
Idioms and phrases are a dedicated MCQ category in many PPSC papers. "At a loss," "bite the bullet," "break the ice," "cut corners," "face the music" — their meanings are tested, not just recognition. Use them in a sentence of your own after looking them up.
Put it into practice
Run a timed set and apply what you just read.