IDENTIFYING GRAMMATICAL MISTAKES

Question 1: Which part of this sentence is grammatically incorrect? My

mother and father do not want me to come to the United States to study but I
came anyway.

A. do
B. want
C. come
 The candidate is talking about something that happened in the past so the
verb do should be in past tense (i.e. did).

Question 2: Which part of this sentence is grammatically incorrect? One of

the main reasons why I chose to go to the United Kingdom to study and
work are because I like cold weather.

 The subject here is “one of the main reasons why I chose to go to the United
Kingdom to study and work”, which is a singular subject (i.e. one reason).
Therefore, it should be used with the verb is.

Question 3: I found it quite difficult when I first started work as all

my coworker had a lot more experience than I did.
 Coworkers should be plural. The word all shows that it is more than one
person who had more experience.

Question 4: One popular meal from my country is Encebollado. The

ingredients include coconut and fishes.
 Fish is an irregular noun. The singular and plural forms are the
same: fish (i.e. one fish // many fish)

Question 5: I think one of the problems for university students in

my country is that they are not properly taught how to do researches.
 Research is an uncountable noun. It is not correct to say researches.

Question 6: I would really like to study a masters at a university that has a

best reputation.
 Best reputation is a superlative adjective. This must be used with the
article the.
Question 7: I would like also the government to increase the amount of
green spaces in my city.
 The word also is in the incorrect place. It should be ‘I would also like’.

Question 8: I think that universities are responsible of ensuring

that their students understand how to avoid plagiarism.

 The correct preposition for the adjective ‘responsible’ is for.

Question 9: If I could travel anywhere in the world, I will go to the Maldives.

 If I could travel anywhere in the world, I will go to the Maldives.

Question 10: The new policy, which impacted a large amount of

students, are not popular.
 The subject here is ‘the new policy’ and the correct subject verb agreement
is is.

Question 11: At my previous job, the boss had high expectations about how
much works we had to do. It was impossible to do it all.
 Work is an uncountable noun. It is not possible to say works as a noun in this
context.

Question 12 : Oh, I think the most largest issue facing my country is poverty

 ‘The most largest’ is an incorrect superlative form. It should be the largest.

Question 13: No, I don’t think that it will improve in the future. In fact,
if anything, I think it gets worse.  The first sentence makes it clear that
this students is talking about the future. Therefore, the second sentence should
also be in future tense (will or is going to).

Question 14: Others countries which speak Spanish include Argentina and

Bolivia. I found it easy when I travelled there.  In this case, the pronoun
‘others’ should be without the ‘s’: * Other countries - correct * Others
countries – incorrect

Question 15: I prefer the dogs. I had a cat a few years ago but I gave

to an uncle because he really wanted one.  In this case, we need to use the
zero article (i.e. I prefer dogs) because the speaker is referring to all dogs, not to
one in specific.