Grammar, Usage & Correction — XAT Previous-Year Questions
12 previous-year questions on Grammar, Usage & Correction from XAT, with full solutions. Practise free — check answers as you go; sign in to save your progress.
Grammar, Usage & Correction · XAT PYQs
Read the following sentences carefully.
A. Everybody accepts his responsibilities.
B. Nobody in that group have their reports up to date, as they should have.
C. Either of the boys is acceptable to do the errands.
D. Both of the mice is underfed.
E. It is I who am next.
F. The teacher told he and I to leave early.
Which of the following combinations has all the sentences grammatically CORRECT?
Read the following sentences carefully.
A. I shall be there at about 9: 00 a.m.
B. Keep off of the grass.
C. My old car was much faster than the new one.
D. I was angry at my friend.
E. Rohit is as capable as Virat.
Which of the following combinations has all the INCORRECT sentences?
Read the following sentences carefully.
- The boss accused her employee for stealing information.
- The boss had better discuss the issue with the employee concerned.
- The India of 2022 is very different from the India of 1947.
- The government is committed to providing people with food.
- He is good in playing the piano.
From the following, identify the option with INCORRECT sentences.
Read the following sentences carefully.
- The exam will begin from 2:00 p.m. on January 8th.
- While entering into the college building, he saw the statue of Mahatma Gandhi.
- The government has entered into a discussion with the local bodies for keeping the streets clean.
- I will start my world tour from Sri Lanka.
- Amitabh Bacchan is married with Jaya Bacchan
- I have been working on this project for three weeks.
From the following, choose the option having all the CORRECT sentences.
Which of the following sentences have the CORRECT usage of punctuation?
Read the following sentences and answer the question that follows:
1. I have good knowledge of German.
2. Except for Rajiv, everybody was there.
3. Whole Delhi was celebrating Independence Day.
4. Neither the dog, nor is the cat responsible for this mess.
5. He knows to swim.
6. I look forward to seeing you.
Which of the above are grammatically INCORRECT?
Which of the following is a grammatically CORRECT sentence?
Carefully read the statements below:
- Chatterjee loves books; therefore, he reads them all the time.
- Chatterjee loves books. Therefore, he reads them all the time.
- Chatterjee loves books and, therefore, reads them all the time.
Which of the above statement(s) is (are) correct in grammar and meaning?
Read the definitions below and select the best match between the numbered sentences and the definitions.
Premise: A proposition from which another statement is inferred or follows a conclusion.
Assumption: Something, which is accepted as true.
Facts: Something, which can be checked.
Reason: A cause, explanation or justification for an action or event.
Conclusion: An end, finish or summarization of process or argument.
Proposition: A statement that expresses judgment or opinion.
Question: A sentence worded or expressed so as to elicit opinion.
Inductive inference: An end, finish or summarization reached for “the whole”, based on “a particular” real incidence.
Deductive Inference: An end, finish or summarization reached based on the combining and recombining two or more than two assumptions.
The MBA (1) is hardly a prerequisite for success, but it (2) certainly helps (3), and it has been getting more important (4) in recent years. Most (5) MBA programs equip their graduates to understand how (6) to deal with many of the important questions that their organizations will need to tackle (7) over time, and (8) that they will face in their careers.
The above italicized numbered words will be correctly represented by the following parts of speech:
Read the definitions below and select the best match between the numbered sentences and the definitions.
Premise: A proposition from which another statement is inferred or follows a conclusion.
Assumption: Something, which is accepted as true.
Facts: Something, which can be checked.
Reason: A cause, explanation or justification for an action or event.
Conclusion: An end, finish or summarization of process or argument.
Proposition: A statement that expresses judgment or opinion.
Question: A sentence worded or expressed so as to elicit opinion.
Inductive inference: An end, finish or summarization reached for “the whole”, based on “a particular” real incidence.
Deductive Inference: An end, finish or summarization reached based on the combining and recombining two or more than two assumptions.
Which of the following is the correct form of expression for the underlined part of the sentence below?
Patna is not only the capital of Bihar, but it is also one of the oldest cities in the world and the largest city in the state.
Read the following passage and answer the questions.
There is an essential and irreducible ‘duality’ in the normative conceptualization of an individual person. We can see the person in terms of his or her ‘agency’, recognizing and respecting his or her ability to form goals, commitments, values, etc., and we can also see the person in terms of his or her ‘well-being’. This dichotomy is lost in a model of exclusively self-interested motivation, in which a person’s agency must be entirely geared to his or her own well-being. But once that straitjacket of self-interested motivation is removed, it becomes possible to recognize the indisputable fact that the person’s agency can well be geared to considerations not covered – or at least not fully covered – by his or her own well-being. Agency may be seen as important (not just instrumentally for the pursuit of well-being, but also intrinsically), but that still leaves open the question as to how that agency is to be evaluated and appraised. Even though the use of one’s agency is a matter for oneself to judge, the need for careful assessment of aims, objective, allegiances, etc., and the conception of the good, may be important and exacting.
To recognize the distinction between the ‘agency aspect’ and the ‘well-being aspect’ of a person does not require us to take the view that the person’s success as an agent must be independent, or completely separable from, his or her success in terms of well-being. A person may well feel happier and better off as a result of achieving what he or she wanted to achieve – perhaps for his or her family, or community, or class, or party, or some other cause. Also it is quite possible that a person’s well-being will go down as a result of frustration if there is some failure to achieve what he or she wanted to achieve as an agent, even though those achievements are not directly concerned with his or her well-being. There is really no sound basis for demanding that the agency aspect and the well-being aspect of a person should be independent of each other, and it is, I suppose, even possible that every change in one will affect the other as well. However, the point at issue is not the plausibility of their independence, but the sustainability and relevance of the distinction. The fact that two variables may be so related that one cannot change without the other, does not imply that they are the same variable, or that they will have the same values, or that the value of one can be obtained from the other on basis of some simple transformation.
The importance of an agency achievement does not rest entirely on the enhancement of well-being that it may indirectly cause. The agency achievement and well-being achievement, both of which have some distinct importance, may be casually linked with each other, but this fact does not compromise the specific importance of either. In so far as utility – based welfare calculations concentrate only on the well-being of the person, ignoring the agency aspect, or actually fails to distinguish between the agency aspect and well-being aspect altogether, something of real importance is lost.
Which of the following sentences is grammatically incorrect?
Read the following passage and answer the questions.
There is an essential and irreducible ‘duality’ in the normative conceptualization of an individual person. We can see the person in terms of his or her ‘agency’, recognizing and respecting his or her ability to form goals, commitments, values, etc., and we can also see the person in terms of his or her ‘well-being’. This dichotomy is lost in a model of exclusively self-interested motivation, in which a person’s agency must be entirely geared to his or her own well-being. But once that straitjacket of self-interested motivation is removed, it becomes possible to recognize the indisputable fact that the person’s agency can well be geared to considerations not covered – or at least not fully covered – by his or her own well-being. Agency may be seen as important (not just instrumentally for the pursuit of well-being, but also intrinsically), but that still leaves open the question as to how that agency is to be evaluated and appraised. Even though the use of one’s agency is a matter for oneself to judge, the need for careful assessment of aims, objective, allegiances, etc., and the conception of the good, may be important and exacting.
To recognize the distinction between the ‘agency aspect’ and the ‘well-being aspect’ of a person does not require us to take the view that the person’s success as an agent must be independent, or completely separable from, his or her success in terms of well-being. A person may well feel happier and better off as a result of achieving what he or she wanted to achieve – perhaps for his or her family, or community, or class, or party, or some other cause. Also it is quite possible that a person’s well-being will go down as a result of frustration if there is some failure to achieve what he or she wanted to achieve as an agent, even though those achievements are not directly concerned with his or her well-being. There is really no sound basis for demanding that the agency aspect and the well-being aspect of a person should be independent of each other, and it is, I suppose, even possible that every change in one will affect the other as well. However, the point at issue is not the plausibility of their independence, but the sustainability and relevance of the distinction. The fact that two variables may be so related that one cannot change without the other, does not imply that they are the same variable, or that they will have the same values, or that the value of one can be obtained from the other on basis of some simple transformation.
The importance of an agency achievement does not rest entirely on the enhancement of well-being that it may indirectly cause. The agency achievement and well-being achievement, both of which have some distinct importance, may be casually linked with each other, but this fact does not compromise the specific importance of either. In so far as utility – based welfare calculations concentrate only on the well-being of the person, ignoring the agency aspect, or actually fails to distinguish between the agency aspect and well-being aspect altogether, something of real importance is lost.
Choose the grammatically correct sentence from the options given below.