Sujini has met her old friend (a) / Guru before she shifted (b) / to Hyderabad two years ago. (c)
- (a)(a)
- (b)(b)
- (c)(c)
- (d)No error
Correct — A, (a). The meeting is the earlier of two finished past events and the sentence is pinned to a definite past time by 'two years ago', so the present perfect 'has met' cannot stand and the past perfect 'had met' is required. Corrected, the sentence reads 'Sujini had met her old friend Guru before she shifted to Hyderabad two years ago.'
- (b)(b) — 'Before she shifted' correctly uses the simple past for the later of the two past events, and 'before' is the right link between them.
- (c)(c) — 'To Hyderabad two years ago' is a normal adverbial of place and finished time, and it is the verb in the first segment that must change to match it.
- (d)No error — The first segment is faulty, because a present perfect verb cannot be used with a definite past time marker, so no error is not available.
A spotting-errors item on tense, where a present perfect verb is barred from a sentence carrying a definite past time reference, and the earlier of two past actions takes the past perfect.
Two rules point at the same segment. The phrase 'two years ago' fixes a finished moment in the past, which the present perfect never accepts, and the meeting happened before another past action, which is exactly what the past perfect marks. Both routes give 'had met'.
- The present perfect is not used with finished-time adverbials such as yesterday, last year or two years ago.
- The past perfect marks the earlier of two completed past actions.
- Hunting for the error in the segment that carries the time phrase rather than in the one with the faulty verb.
- Accepting 'has met' because the sentence sounds fluent when read aloud.
Asked as a spotting-errors item — pick the lettered segment containing the error, or mark no error.
No directly related past PYQ was found.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Which part contains the error? 'I have visited (a) / my uncle in Pune (b) / last summer. (c)'
- (a)(a)
- (b)(b)
- (c)(c)
- (d)No error
Answer(a) — 'have visited' should be 'visited', because 'last summer' is a finished past time.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Which part contains the error? 'The train has left (a) / before we reached (b) / the station. (c)'
- (a)(a)
- (b)(b)
- (c)(c)
- (d)No error
Answer(a) — 'has left' should be 'had left', the earlier of the two past actions.