Error Detection
How the spot-the-error question is built, a checklist of the error types it draws on, and a method for scanning a split sentence quickly without second-guessing the parts that are correct.
What you will be able to do
- Describe the standard format of a spot-the-error item and the 'no error' option.
- Run a fixed checklist of error categories over a split sentence.
- Identify agreement, pronoun, tense, parallelism, preposition and article errors on sight.
- Avoid changing a part that is already correct.
What is inside this lesson
- 1How the question is built
- 2The scanning checklist
- 3Agreement and pronoun errors
- 4Tense and parallelism errors
- 5Preposition, article and word-choice errors
- 6Worked example: two items
- 7Doing it under time
- 8Quick revision
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How the question is built
A spot-the-error item gives you one sentence split into three, four or five labelled parts, with a final option for "no error". Exactly one part carries a grammatical mistake, or none does.
The sentence is written to sound natural when read straight through, so the error hides behind fluency. The fix is not to re-read for meaning but to test each part against a short list of the rules these questions repeatedly use.
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