A major step in editing is to correct sentences in English. Whether you are a student or a budding writer, you know how important it is to be able to write grammatically correct sentences. And solving sentence correction exercises is the way out in this regard.
What happens if you add a little more salt than what’s required, in an otherwise perfectly prepared concoction?
That’s exactly how grammar relates to the language. It removes errors from your writing. It is the soul of language.
And if the role of grammar and punctuation is still not very clear, look at this:
Does it need any explanation?
So, students and newbie writers, fasten your seatbelts. Some sentence correction exercises are awaiting you here. Correct the sentences to the best of your ability. Consider yourself:
- 🦸♂️ a grammar hero if your score is above 18,
- 🧧 pretty good if you score 15 to 18,
- 😢 average for 10-14 and
- 😲 Consider enrolling in a basic grammar course if you score below 10
Opening Image by chenspec from Pixabay
Page contents
Sentence Correction Exercise -1
[DIFFICULTY LEVEL-5 | TOUGHEST]
Correct the following sentences and rewrite them:
- The virus may have detrimental affect on your health in the long run.
- It proved a real good decision to avoid visiting her.
- He is junior than me as regards rank.
- I look forward to meet you.
- I hand overed the documents to him.
- The engineer appraised the authorities of the accident.
- Neither of the two parties have filed a case.
- She will go to home on foot.
- A report has it’s own importance in the final meeting.
- I’m not sure if I will play in the tournament.
- Following their opinion truly I realized the mistakes I had made.
- I choose to support the idea in the meeting yesterday.
- It was her own way to return back the favour.
- She has a dark skin.
- Aarti and Shail makes a good team. (Subject-verb agreement)
- I have been doing this work since three years now.
- With one eye closed, Radhika aimed on the target.
- This business house deals with cotton.
- A cow is an useful animal.
- Each of the girls have scored more than ninety.
A must know for writers: Sentence inversion
Answer Key
- The virus may have detrimental effect on your health in the long run.
Explanation: The verb form is ‘affect’ and when used as noun, the spelling is ‘effect’.
2. It proved a really good decision to avoid visiting her.
Explanation: ‘Really’ is an adverb and ‘real’ is an adjective. Here the use of the adverb is more appropriate.
3. He is junior to me as regards rank.
Explanation: ‘Junior’ is not a comparative word like bigger, smaller etc.
4. I look forward to meeting you.
Explanation: Here, ‘meeting’ is a verbal noun, i.e. a noun derived from a verb. The rule, with respect to this sentence, says that the verbal, while acting as a subject to a preposition (‘to’ in this case), must end in ‘ing’.
5. I handed over the documents to him.
Explanation: The past participle of ‘hand over’ is ‘handed over’, not ‘hand overed’)
6. The engineer apprised the authorities of the accident.
Explanation: ‘Apprise’ means ‘to brief or inform’ whereas appraise means ‘to assess or evaluate something’.
7. Neither of the two parties has filed a case.
Explanation: After ‘either’ and ‘neither’ we use a singular verb.
8. She will go home on foot.
Explanation: The preposition ‘to’ is not used before the word ‘home’. For example, “on way back home…, not on way back to home.
9. A report has its own importance in the final meeting.
Explanation: The apostrophe in it’s is used only if we mean to say “it is”.
10. I’m not sure whether I will play in the tournament.
Explanation: ‘Whether’ is used when there are two choices; in this case, I may play or may not play. On the contrary, ‘if’ is used to introduce one situation depending on another. For example: I will do the job for you if she comes.
11. Following their opinion, I truly realized the mistakes I had made.
Explanation: Place the adverb ‘truly’ in an unambiguous manner, i.e. without doubt. Sentence in the question does not indicate whether I truly follow their opinion or truly realize my mistakes.
12. I chose to support the idea in the meeting yesterday.
Explanation: As the event happens in the past, the past participle ‘chose’ and not the present participle ‘choose’, should be used.
13. It was her own way to return the favour.
Explanation: ‘Return’ itself means ‘to give back’. So, there is no need to use the word ‘back’ separately.
14. She has dark skin.
Explanation: ‘Skin’ is an uncountable noun, so we should not use ‘a’ before it.
15. Aarti and Shail make a good team. (Subject-verb agreement)
Explanation: As there are more than one subjects, ‘make’ and not ‘makes’ is the correct verb form. This is generally known as subject-verb disagreement.
16. I have been doing this work for three years now.
Explanation: ‘For’ is used to indicate a period, ‘since’ is used to indicate a point in time. For example, since 1947.
17. With one eye closed, Radhika aimed at the target.
Explanation: The correct preposition is ‘at’ not ‘on’.
18. This business house deals in cotton.
Explanation: The correct preposition is ‘in’ not ‘with’, because ‘deal with’ means ‘to have to do with’ and ‘deal in’ means ‘to be engaged in or to practice’.
19. A cow is a useful animal.
Explanation: ‘u’ is a vowel but its pronunciation begins with a ‘y’ (yoosful). So, the proper article before ‘useful’ is ‘a’as in case of a consonant.
20. Each of the girls has scored more than ninety.
Explanation: Again, this is a case of subject-verb disagreement. ‘Each of the girls’ refers to one of them at a time. So we use ‘has’ and not ‘have’.
Sentence Correction Exercise -2
[DIFFICULTY LEVEL-4 | DIFFICULT]
Here is an exercise of 5 sentence correction questions. Attempt this quiz and calibrate your expertise.
Correct the part of the sentence where there is an error. If you do not find an error, choose the option ‘No error’.
Sentence Correction Exercise -3
[DIFFICULTY LEVEL-3 | MEDIUM]
This is a sentence correction exercise quiz based on the use of prepositions.
Choose the most appropriate one out of the given preposition replacement suggestions . If you feel there is no need to change, choose the option 'No Change'.
Sentence Correction Exercise -4
[DIFFICULTY LEVEL-2 | EASY]
This is a Sentence Correction Exercise based on 'PUNCTUATION'
Choose the correctly punctuated alternative from the given ones:
Sentence Correction Exercise -5
[DIFFICULTY LEVEL-1 | EASIEST]
This is a beginner level sentence correction exercise. Students of 3rd, 4th or 5th grades may take this test.
Choose the correct alternative from the given 4 choices in order to correct the given sentence.
Correcting Sentences in English is an Editing Skill
If this bout with grammar leaves you hungry, learn more, take more sentence correction exercises and improve your performance.
This ability may reward you a job – that of an editor. One of the main skills of an editor is to remove grammatical sentence errors.
Above all, you progress towards becoming a better writer.
Do These 3 Things to Write Correct Sentences
✔ When you read a sentence loud to yourself and it doesn’t sound grammatically correct to you, there is something to it. Keep reading it repeatedly, and the error would gradually be clearer.
✔ The key to developing a knack for finding out and correcting errors in sentences is extensive reading – rather reading voraciously. Read novels, articles, poems, haikus, short stories, flash fiction… and whatever comes your way.
✔ Sometimes a sentence is not entirely incorrect but you can still improve it. For example, replacing ‘made a mistake’ with ‘committed an error’ may improve your sentence. So, keep trying your hand at making your sentences a shade better.
How to Use Sentence Variation in a Blog Post to Increase Reading Engagement