12.1 English Grammar I — Tenses, Articles, Prepositions & Agreement

The 12 English Tenses

English verbs mark three time frames (past, present, future) and four aspects (simple, continuous, perfect, perfect-continuous), producing the twelve-tense grid below. The example verb is work; substitute any main verb with the same auxiliary pattern.

• Simple states a fact or habit: "She plays cricket every Sunday."
• Continuous (-ing form + be) shows action in progress at a reference time: "She was playing when it rained."
• Perfect (have + past participle) links a completed action to another time: "She has finished her homework."
• Perfect-Continuous (have + been + -ing) stresses duration up to a point: "She has been studying for three hours."

Articles: a, an, the, and Zero Article

Articles are determiners that signal whether a noun is specific or general.

Indefinite Articles — a / an

Use a before a consonant sound, an before a vowel sound. The sound matters, not the spelling: "an hour" (silent h), "a university" (consonant /j/ sound), "an MBA" (vowel /e/ sound because 'M' is pronounced 'em').

Definite Article — the

Use the for a specific or unique referent already known to the listener: "the Sun," "the Prime Minister of India," "the book you lent me." Also use it with superlatives ("the tallest"), ordinal numbers ("the first"), mountain ranges and rivers ("the Himalayas," "the Ganga"), and musical instruments ("she plays the violin").

Zero Article (no article)

Omit the article before:

• Proper nouns: "Karnataka is in southern India" (not "the Karnataka")
• General plural or uncountable nouns: "Books are my best friends," "Honesty is the best policy"
• Meals, games, subjects, languages: "She plays chess after dinner; she studies mathematics"
• Institutions when used for their primary purpose: "She goes to school at 9 a.m.; the school was built in 1990"

Prepositions of Time, Place, and Direction

The classic in → on → at pyramid narrows from month to day to clock time: "The exam is in August on the 20th at 10 a.m."

Subject–Verb Agreement

The verb must agree with the subject in number and person. Five cases cause most errors:

• Each, every, either, neither, anyone, somebody take a singular verb: "Every villager has a ration card."
• Neither / either alone = singular; with "of the" + plural noun still singular: "Neither of the maps is accurate."
• None can be singular or plural depending on sense; default to singular in exams: "None of the candidates was selected."
• Collective nouns (team, jury, committee, family) take a singular verb when acting as one body: "The committee has approved the plan." Use plural only when members act individually: "The jury were divided in their opinions."
• One of the + plural noun + singular verb: "One of the students is absent."
• With either...or / neither...nor, the verb agrees with the nearer subject: "Neither the clerk nor the officers were present."

Parts of Speech — The Base Layer

Every grammar question ultimately asks you to identify a word's function, so keep the eight classes clear.

Noun sub-classes that appear in questions: proper, common, collective (jury, committee), material, abstract, countable and uncountable. Degrees of comparison — positive, comparative, superlative — with the irregulars good/better/best, bad/worse/worst, little/less/least, many/more/most, and the trap that double comparatives ("more better") are always wrong.

Modal Verbs and Their Uses

Two frequently tested points: must expresses the speaker's own conclusion or obligation while have to expresses external compulsion; and after a modal the verb is always in the bare infinitive ("she can go", never "can to go" or "can goes").

Common Error Patterns in the Exam

The English section rewards recognising a small number of repeating patterns.

Reported speech depends on context. With a past reporting verb, tense often backshifts, but a statement that remains true or relevant may retain its tense. Pronouns and time/place words change only when needed to preserve who, when or where is meant. For example, both "He said that he was busy" and "He said that he is busy" can be appropriate, depending on whether the report presents the situation as still current.

Worked Practice

Correct: "The Tahsildar, along with the two Revenue Inspectors, are inspecting the boundary since morning."

Three errors, and each belongs to a rule above. The subject is the Tahsildar — a phrase beginning along with does not change the number of the subject — so the verb must be singular. "Since morning" with an ongoing action needs the present perfect continuous. The corrected sentence: "The Tahsildar, along with the two Revenue Inspectors, has been inspecting the boundary since morning."

Correct: "He is one of the best officer who have served in this taluk."

"He is one of the best officers who have served in this taluk." After one of the, the noun is plural, and the relative pronoun who refers to officers, so the verb agrees with the plural.

Exam Angle for Section 12.1

Learn the tense grid as a table you can reproduce in thirty seconds, memorise the a / an by sound rule with its classic examples (an hour, a university, an MBA), keep the in → on → at narrowing for time and place, and drill the agreement cases. Then revisit the error-pattern table every few days and practise explaining the correction for each example.