SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 10 September 2024, Shift 2 · English Comprehension · Question 3 of 100

Text as printed on a candidate's response sheet for this shift; answer per SSC's tentative key as marked on that sheet. Solution last reviewed 6 September 2026.

Where this paper and its answers come from

SSC does not publish CGL question papers or a public answer key. The questions and options here are reproduced as printed on a candidate's own response sheet for this shift — the Commission's text, unchanged. Each answer is SSC's tentative key as marked on that sheet; SSC allowed challenges to it and never publishes a final key. The solutions are written by UnlockIAS.

The following sentence has been split into four segments. Identify the segment that contains a grammatical error. Our family is planning / a trip to Europe next summer / where we should visit several famous / landmarks and enjoy local cuisine.

(a)Our family is planning
(b)a trip to Europe next summer
(c)landmarks and enjoy local cuisine
(d)where we should visit several famous

Answer

Why

Correct — D. The fault is the modal should.

'Our family is planning a trip' states an intention already formed, so the clause after it must report that plan: 'where we will visit several famous landmarks'.

'Should' expresses advice or obligation — someone outside telling the family what it ought to do — which contradicts a plan the family has made for itself.

Option (d) is therefore the segment that has to change. The other three are sound.

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Our family is planning — 'Our family is planning' is a correct present continuous for an arranged future, and 'family' takes a singular verb in this use.
(b)
a trip to Europe next summer — 'a trip to Europe next summer' is an ordinary noun phrase with a future time marker. No article, preposition or number in it is wrong.
(c)
landmarks and enjoy local cuisine — 'landmarks and enjoy local cuisine' is parallel, because 'enjoy' pairs with the bare verb 'visit' under the same modal. The coordination holds.

Concept

Error-spotting items turn on a single wrong word, not on rewriting the sentence to taste. Read each segment against the time frame the sentence itself sets up.

The frame here is a settled future plan. English marks that with 'will' or with the present continuous, not with 'should', which imports an outside recommendation.

Modal choice is a favourite trigger because a wrong modal leaves the grammar looking clean while the meaning slips.

Some solvers instead flag 'where'. It is defensible: 'where' is a relative adverb and Europe, a place, is a legitimate antecedent for it. Either reading lands on the same segment, which is why the key can mark option (d) without ambiguity.

Key facts

A plan already made is reported with 'will' or with the present continuous, not with 'should'.
'Should' carries advice or obligation, which needs an adviser standing outside the plan.
'Where' is a relative adverb and needs a place as its antecedent, which Europe supplies.

Study next

Modal verbs by function: will for intention, should for advice, must for necessityRelative adverbs where, when and why, and the antecedents each one needsPresent continuous used for arranged future events

Common traps

Rejecting 'is planning' as a wrong tense when it is a legitimate future use.
Assuming 'family' must take a plural verb.
Scanning the segments for spelling or vocabulary when the trigger is a modal.

Error items are packaged in more than one shape: segments to compare, as here, and a whole sentence with one option quoting the faulty part, as in this shift's English Q.18. Q.19 of the same shift tests the same skill but asks for the corrected phrase instead of the faulty one.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.