Parts of the following sentence have been given as options. Select the option that contains an error. I are dancing with my husband at my sister’s wedding.
- (a)husband at my
- (b)I are dancing
- (c)with my
- (d)sister’s wedding
Answer
Why
Correct — B. The subject is I, and the only present-tense form of be that agrees with I is am. The segment reads I are dancing, so subject and verb disagree.
The correction is "I am dancing with my husband at my sister's wedding" — present continuous, used here for an arrangement already fixed.
Nothing else in the sentence breaks a rule, so option (b) is the segment that carries the error.
Why the others are wrong
- (a)husband at my — At is the right preposition for an event you attend: at a wedding, at a party. This segment joins the dance partner to the occasion correctly and breaks no rule.
- (c)with my — Dance with someone is the fixed pattern for a partner, and the possessive my agrees with the subject I. There is nothing in these two words to fault.
- (d)sister’s wedding — The apostrophe stands before the s because sister is singular, so sister's wedding is punctuated correctly. Candidates hunting for a plural sisters' misread the one sister the sentence names.
Concept
Error-spotting items cut one sentence into four labelled segments and ask which is faulty. You test each segment against a rule, not against how it sounds.
Subject-verb agreement is the commonest fault planted. Be is irregular in the present: I takes am, he, she and it take is, and you, we and they take are.
Here the sentence keeps the continuous form but pairs it with the wrong auxiliary, I are instead of I am.
The rest of the sentence is deliberately clean — a correct preposition, a correct possessive — so the item rewards a candidate who checks the auxiliary before hunting for punctuation.
Key facts
- Present tense of be: I am, he or she or it is, you and we and they are.
- The present continuous is be plus the -ing form, so the auxiliary must agree with the subject.
- A singular noun takes apostrophe-s for possession, as in my sister's wedding.
Study next
Common traps
- Scanning for a missing apostrophe and stopping at sister's wedding before checking the verb.
- Accepting I are because the -ing form dancing looks correct on its own.
SSC splits one sentence into four segments and plants exactly one fault, most often in agreement, tense or a preposition.
The same shift tests agreement again at English Q.14, where "Each participant have" must become "Each participant has" (9 Sep 2024, 16:00).
Related PYQs
No directly related past PYQ was found.