EPFO EO/AO 2023 General Ability Test · Question 9 of 120

Correct — A, (a) ‘Jitender was the smartest’. The error is one of degree. English has three degrees of comparison — positive (smart), comparative (smarter) and superlative (smartest) — and the choice between the last two is not stylistic. The comparative is used when exactly two things are compared; the superlative when the field is three or more. This sentence says ‘of the two’, so the field is two, and the adjective must be comparative: ‘Jitender was the smarter of the two children in the room.’ Notice the article. ‘Smarter’ here keeps ‘the’ in front of it, which surprises candidates who have learnt that ‘the’ goes with superlatives. It is correct: when a comparative picks out one member of a specified pair, English marks the choice as definite — the smarter of the two, the elder of the two brothers, the better of the two proposals, the more experienced of the two candidates. So the repair is a single word inside segment (a), and ‘the’ stays exactly where it is printed. The rest of the sentence supports rather than causes the fault. ‘Of the two’ is the phrase that fixes the number, and ‘children in the room’ merely tells you who the two are. Both are correctly formed, and changing either of them to accommodate ‘smartest’ — writing ‘of the three’, say — would be rewriting the sentence rather than correcting it. The error-spotting format asks for the segment that must be altered to repair the sentence as written, and that is segment (a).

• (b)of the two — ‘of the two’ is correct as printed, and it is doing the most important work in the sentence: it is the phrase that tells you the field has two members and therefore that the adjective must be comparative. Candidates who feel the clash between ‘smartest’ and ‘two’ but name the wrong side of it mark this segment. The rule to hold is that the numeral phrase is evidence, not error — it defines the comparison, so the adjective must be made to fit it and not the other way round.
• (c)children in the room. — ‘children in the room.’ is correct. ‘Children’ is the right plural after ‘the two’, the noun follows the partitive phrase in the normal order — the smarter of the two children — and ‘in the room’ is an ordinary prepositional modifier telling you which two children are meant. There is no article, agreement or word-order problem anywhere in the segment.
• (d)No error — ‘No error’ is not available, because ‘the smartest of the two’ breaks the comparative rule outright. It is a construction heard often enough in speech to sound acceptable, and that familiarity is what the item exploits. In the examination’s terms a superlative with a two-member field is a definite fault, and marking (d) both loses the two and a half marks and attracts the one-third penalty.

Degrees of comparison are tested in this section more often than any other single point of grammar, and four rules cover almost everything an item can turn on. First, two takes the comparative and three or more takes the superlative: the taller of the two, the tallest of the three. Second, when a comparative selects from a named pair it takes the definite article — the elder of the two, the better of the two schemes — which is the only common context where ‘the’ and a comparative sit together. Third, the comparative is followed by ‘than’ and the superlative by ‘of’, ‘in’ or ‘among’: taller than his brother, the tallest in the class. Fourth, adjectives that are already comparative in form — senior, junior, superior, inferior, prior, preferable — take neither ‘more’ nor ‘than’, but ‘to’. Around these sit the two-member words that behave the same way. ‘Former’ and ‘latter’ divide a pair, while ‘first’ and ‘last’ are used for three or more; ‘elder’ and ‘eldest’ are restricted to people, usually family; and in careful exam usage ‘between’ is written for two and ‘among’ for more than two. A sentence that names a field of two is therefore constrained in several places at once, and error-spotting items exploit exactly that.

Q9 is the fourth item of the spotting-errors set. It prints only its sentence — the Directions block for the five stands above Q6 — and its three underlined segments carry the letters that double as answer choices, with (d) reserved for ‘No error’. The item is deliberately conversational. ‘The smartest of the two’ is said constantly in ordinary speech, and a candidate reading for sound rather than for rule will pass over it without a flicker. That is the whole design: an error-spotting sentence is chosen because it is comfortable, and comfort is not evidence. The habit worth building is to react to certain trigger words rather than to discomfort — a numeral, a superlative, a comparative, a preposition after a Latin adjective — and to check the rule attached to each trigger. Here the trigger is the word ‘two’, and it should send the eye straight back to the adjective.

• The comparative degree is used when exactly two things are compared and the superlative when three or more are: the smarter of the two, the smartest of the three.
• A comparative that selects one of a named pair keeps the definite article — the smarter of the two, the elder of the two brothers — so ‘the’ in this sentence is not the fault.
• The comparative is completed by ‘than’, the superlative by ‘of’, ‘in’ or ‘among’; ‘of the two’ therefore signals that a comparative is required.
• ‘Former’ and ‘latter’ are used of two items only, ‘first’ and ‘last’ of three or more; ‘elder’ and ‘eldest’ are used of people, chiefly within a family.
• The correction here is one word inside segment (a) — smartest becomes smarter — and no other segment changes.

• Judging by ear. ‘The smartest of the two’ is common in speech, so nothing sounds wrong, and reading for comfort is exactly what this item punishes.
• Naming the numeral phrase instead of the adjective. ‘Of the two’ is the evidence that fixes the degree; the adjective is what has to change.
• Assuming ‘the’ before a comparative must be wrong. In ‘the smarter of the two’ the definite article is required, not optional.
• Repairing the sentence by enlarging the field — imagining three children — and then concluding that no segment is at fault. The task is to correct the sentence as printed.

Comparison is a favourite of this section because it can be tested with a five-word sentence and no vocabulary at all, and because the wrong version is what most people say. Expect the field size to be stated somewhere in the sentence — ‘of the two’, ‘of all the applicants’, ‘between the two proposals’ — and expect the adjective to be the segment that has to move. The same rule shows up in the cloze set as a choice between comparative and superlative forms, and in reading comprehension as a distractor that upgrades a passage’s comparative claim into a superlative one.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Identify the segment containing the error, or mark (d) if there is none : Of the two schemes placed before the board (a) | the second was clearly the most workable (b) | in the districts with poor connectivity. (c) | No error (d)

  • (a)Of the two schemes placed before the board
  • (b)the second was clearly the most workable
  • (c)in the districts with poor connectivity.
  • (d)No error

  Answer(b) the second was clearly the most workable — the field is two, fixed by ‘Of the two schemes’ in segment (a), so the comparative is required: ‘the more workable’. The definite article stays, because a comparative selecting one of a named pair keeps ‘the’.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Identify the segment containing the error, or mark (d) if there is none : She is the elder of the two sisters (a) | and by some way the more capable (b) | of the four candidates interviewed. (c) | No error (d)

  • (a)She is the elder of the two sisters
  • (b)and by some way the more capable
  • (c)of the four candidates interviewed.
  • (d)No error

  Answer(b) and by some way the more capable — the field in the second comparison is four, named in segment (c), so the superlative ‘the most capable’ is required. Segment (a) is correct: ‘elder’ is right for a sibling and the comparative is right for a field of two.