SSC CGL Sentence Improvement Questions 2026 (Grammar, Phrasal Verbs & Idioms) — Free Chapter Wise Practice Test

Sentence Improvement Tests — Pick a Level and Start

Tap a level to see every test in it. Level 1 is set at real SSC CGL difficulty — start there once the grammar rules are fresh. Level 2 is pitched above the exam, to sharpen accuracy when the options sit very close together.

Every sentence improvement question asks one thing: which option, put in place of the underlined part, makes the whole sentence correct? If the underlined part is already right, the answer is “No substitution required”. The rest of the sentence is always correct, so it is your best clue — the subject, the time words and the other verbs tell you what the underlined part must become.

Marks are lost in three places. The first is choosing an option that fixes the obvious error but adds a new one — “has rose” fixes the agreement and breaks the verb form. The second is trusting the ear over the rule: “discuss about”, “return back” and “did a mistake” sound normal in speech but are wrong in the exam. The third is never choosing “No substitution required” — a few sentences in every paper are already correct, and they carry a trap that only looks wrong.

How Many Sentence Improvement Questions Are Asked in SSC CGL?

Sentence improvement is a regular part of the English section — usually two or three questions in an SSC CGL Tier I shift, with the same pattern in CHSL and more questions in Tier II. The forms it takes are listed below, most common first.

Questions that ask you to find the wrong segment without offering a replacement are practised in the Spot the Error chapter.

What You Will Practice in the Sentence Improvement Chapter

Grammar

• Subject-verb agreement — each, every, one of the, the number of, along with, neither…nor, there is / there are
• Tense — since and for, sequence of tenses, time and condition clauses, all three conditionals, the past perfect, “by the time”
• Verb forms — past participles, the passive, gerund or infinitive, “look forward to + ing”, “had better”, causative “have something done”
• Pronouns, articles, comparisons, adverbs, prepositions and correlative conjunctions
• Structure — inversion, parallelism, indirect questions, question tags, “too…to”, dangling participles

Usage and vocabulary

• Phrasal verbs — put off, call off, look into, turn down, put up with, do away with, make up for
• Collocations — make a decision, pay attention, commit a crime, lodge a complaint, strike a balance
• Commonly confused words — affect and effect, principle and principal, continual and continuous
• Idioms and redundancy — at the eleventh hour, leave no stone unturned, “return back”, “repeat again”

Rules worth knowing instantly

In the exam, read the sentence once with each option in place. The right option leaves no error anywhere in the sentence; every wrong one leaves at least one.

The three mistakes that cost the most marks

• Fixing one error and missing the second. Check agreement, tense and verb form in the option you pick, not just the error you spotted.
• Letting the nearest noun decide the verb. In “The quality of the mangoes are poor” the subject is “quality”, so the verb is “is”.
• Changing a correct sentence. “The news is good”, “You had better go” and “It is high time we left” look odd and are right.

Solved Examples — SSC CGL Sentence Improvement

How the Sentence Improvement Tests Work

• 25 questions per test, with a full question palette — answered, skipped, marked for review, not visited.
• Both SSC forms in every test — questions with “No substitution required” and questions with four alternatives, grammar and usage mixed.
• Optional 15-minute timer — with the clock to build exam speed, without it while you are still learning the rules.
• Marking: +2 correct, −0.5 wrong, 0 unattempted — the same scheme as the real paper.
• Step-by-step solutions open after you submit — the rule, why the underlined part is wrong, why each other option fails, the trap, and a one-line trick.
• In English, the language of the paper itself.
• Free with a TrickySSC account — sign in once with Google or your mobile number, and every test is open to you.

How to Prepare Sentence Improvement for SSC CGL

1. Read the whole sentence before the options. Find the subject, the time words and the other verbs; they fix what the underlined part must be.
2. Name the error before you look for the answer. Agreement, tense, verb form, preposition or usage — once you know which, three options usually fall away.
3. Put each option back into the sentence. The right one leaves no error anywhere; an option that fixes one thing and breaks another is the commonest trap.
4. Keep a list of fixed pairs. Prepositions after verbs, collocations and phrasal verbs are learned, not worked out — revise them daily.
5. Give “No substitution required” a fair chance. If you cannot name a rule that the underlined part breaks, it is probably correct.
6. Do Level 1 untimed first, then with the 15-minute clock. Move to Level 2 once Level 1 is steady, and then check yourself on a previous year English section.

Related SSC CGL English Practice

Sentence improvement and spot the error test the same grammar rules from two directions, and fill in the blanks tests the same usage. Practising them together makes each one faster.

All SSC CGL Chapter Wise Tests

Every chapter below has its own free Level 1 and Level 2 tests with full solutions.

SSC CGL Sentence Improvement — Frequently Asked Questions

More Free SSC CGL Practice