Pick the part of the sentence that has an error: My elder brother is a MA whereas I am only a BA

Spotting the Errors — Preparation

This question tests your understanding of Spotting the Errors, a key topic in the English Language section. The detailed solution above uses a step-by-step approach to show the reasoning, and where available, a shortcut that helps you solve similar questions in under 90 seconds during the actual exam.

Spotting the errors questions divide a sentence into three or four parts and ask you to find the part that contains a grammatical mistake. Usually one option is "No error". The mistakes tested most often are subject-verb agreement, wrong tense, incorrect pronouns, misused prepositions and articles, wrong degree of comparison, and errors with conjunctions and question tags. Read the whole sentence first to understand its meaning, then check each part against the common rules. Start with the subject and the verb, because agreement errors are the most frequent. Watch for traps such as "each", "either" and "neither", which take a singular verb, and "one of the" followed by a plural noun. Choose "No error" only after checking every part carefully. Practise the spotting the errors questions below. Each solution names the error and the grammar rule behind it.