Parts of the given sentence have been underlined. Identify the part that has an error. Select 'No error' if there is no error. Although the team had trained diligently for months, they had still overwhelmed by the opponent's unexpected tactics.
- (a)for months
- (b)trained diligently
- (c)had still overwhelmed
- (d)No error
Answer
Why
Correct — C. The trigger is the agent phrase by the opponent's unexpected tactics. An agent introduced by "by" means the subject received the action, so the verb has to be passive.
The underlined segment gives "they had still overwhelmed", which is active. Overwhelm is transitive, so in the active it would need an object, and there is none.
Read correctly it is "they were still overwhelmed" — be plus the past participle, with the adverb between them.
Why the others are wrong
- (a)for months — "For months" is the standard way to give duration with the past perfect "had trained". Nothing in the segment is wrong.
- (b)trained diligently — "Trained diligently" places the adverb after the verb it modifies, which is correct English, and the tense agrees with the concession clause opened by "Although".
- (d)No error — No error cannot stand while the by-agent sits in the sentence with an active verb in front of it. Something must change, so the sentence is not error-free.
Concept
SSC's error-spotting items nearly always turn on one identifiable rule, and the fastest rules to test are the visible ones.
A by-agent is one of them: the moment you see "by + doer", check that the verb is be + past participle. Here "had trained" in the first clause is fine, so the fault has to be in the second clause, and the second clause has both a by-agent and an active verb.
The repair can be "were still overwhelmed" or "had still been overwhelmed"; either way the auxiliary be must appear.
The sentence reads fluently because "had trained" earlier in the sentence primes you to accept a second "had". Fluency is not grammar — the clause has no object for its transitive verb.
Key facts
- A "by + agent" phrase signals a passive verb, formed with be plus the past participle.
- Overwhelm is transitive: used actively it must be followed by an object.
- The corrected segment is "were still overwhelmed" or "had still been overwhelmed".
- An adverb like still sits between the auxiliary and the participle: were still overwhelmed.
Study next
Common traps
- Treating "had still overwhelmed" as a tense problem and hunting for the right tense, when the fault is voice.
- Choosing No error because the sentence sounds smooth on a first quick reading.
Error-spotting appears in this shift in a five-segment layout too, at English Q.14, where the faulty segment is "medicines increased" and the rule tested is tense rather than voice.
When SSC underlines parts of a sentence, one segment carries a nameable rule violation; find the rule, not the awkward-sounding phrase.
Related PYQs
No directly related past PYQ was found.