SSC CGL 2025 Tier-I · 21 September 2025, Shift 3 · English Comprehension · Question 16 of 100

We transcribed this text from the pictures on a candidate's response sheet for this shift; the answer is the key SSC colour-marked on that sheet. Solution last reviewed 11 September 2026.

Where this paper and its answers come from

SSC does not publish CGL question papers or a public answer key. From 2025 the candidate response sheet prints every question and option as a picture, so the text here is transcribed from those pictures for this shift and checked against them independently; where the layout carries meaning, the picture is shown as well. Each answer is the key SSC colour-marked on that sheet. SSC released a tentative key for challenge and later its final one, both only to candidates behind a login, and the sheet does not say which of the two it carries. The solutions are written by UnlockIAS.

Find the part of the sentence that contains an error: The assumption that all data must be normalized (1)/ before processing it using machine learning algorithms (2)/ has been a common practice (3)/ in this domain for decades. (4)

(a)(1)
(b)(2)
(c)(3)
(d)(4)

Answer

Why

Correct — B. The clause's subject is all data, and its verb is passive: all data must be normalized. The data receives the action.

Part (2) turns active: before processing it. An -ing phrase after before is read with the clause's subject as its doer, so the data would be processing itself.

Keep the passive: before being processed using machine learning algorithms → option (b).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
(1) — must be normalized is a correct passive after a modal: must + be + past participle. The that-clause after assumption is sound too.
(c)
(3) — has been agrees with the singular head assumption, not with data or algorithms. Calling an assumption a practice is loose wording, but not a grammatical error.
(d)
(4) — for decades marks a period running up to now, and that is the job of the present perfect has been. The tense and the phrase fit.

Concept

An -ing phrase after before, after or while has no subject of its own. The reader borrows the subject of the clause it sits in.

Before leaving, she locked the door: she leaves. All data must be normalized before processing it: the data processes. When the borrowed subject cannot do the action, the phrase is dangling.

Two repairs work, and both stay inside part (2): before being processed or before it is processed.

A reader can guess who does the processing, which is why this slip is easy to miss. Grammar still ties the -ing phrase to the subject, and here that subject is data.

Key facts

An -ing phrase after before, after or while takes the subject of its clause as its doer.
The passive -ing form is being + past participle: before being processed.
A verb agrees with the head noun of its subject, not with a noun inside a that-clause: The assumption that all data ... has been.
For + a period running up to now takes the present perfect: has been ... for decades.

Study next

Dangling participles: Walking home, the rain beganPassive gerunds and infinitives: being processed, to be processedAgreement when a head noun is followed by a that-clause

Common traps

Marking part (3) because an assumption is not really a practice, when has been is grammatically correct
Accepting processing it because someone obviously processes the data, when that someone is nowhere in the sentence

The same frame, a head noun followed by a that-clause, carries its error on the verb at 14 Sep 2025, 12:30, English Q.10 (The perception that ... have led → has led) and 14 Sep 2025, 12:30, English Q.12 (The fact that ... reflect → reflects).

Here that verb, has been, is correct, and the fault sits in the -ing phrase.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

Topic: Error spotting — all 86 SSC CGL questions on it, every solved shift.