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Syllabus
⚖️ CLAT
Subject:Common Law Admission Test Syllabus

Grammar, Vocabulary & Para Jumbles

Syllabus Unit: English Language

Why it matters

Chapter overview

Beyond reading comprehension, CLAT's English section tests mechanical language skills directly: spotting a grammatical error embedded in a sentence, reordering a jumbled paragraph into logical sequence, and recalling precise word meanings (synonyms, antonyms, idioms, one-word substitutions). This unit covers error spotting and sentence correction, para jumbles and coherence, synonym/antonym/idiom vocabulary, and one-word substitution and spelling.

Common Law Admission Test Syllabus English Language 20% weightage
Live Animation1 / 4
90
Subject-Verb Agreement
70
Preposition Errors
60
Tense Errors
40
Redundancy

1Error Spotting & Sentence Correction

Most CLAT grammar errors fall into a short, predictable list — subject-verb agreement, tense, and preposition mistakes are tested again and again.

Learning Objectives

  • Apply the subject-verb agreement rule, including tricky cases: collective nouns, 'neither/either', and intervening phrases.
  • Identify tense-consistency errors within a single sentence (mixing past and present incorrectly).
  • Recognise common preposition errors (e.g., 'married with' instead of 'married to').
  • Distinguish correctly-formed comparative/superlative structures from common misuse (e.g., double comparatives).

Key Terms

Subject-Verb AgreementThe grammatical rule that a verb must match its subject in number (singular/plural) — the single most-tested CLAT grammar error.
Tense ConsistencyThe requirement that verb tenses within a sentence or connected clauses logically align with the intended timeline of events.
Preposition ErrorIncorrect pairing of a preposition with a verb/adjective that conventionally requires a different one (e.g., 'depend of' instead of 'depend on').
RedundancyUnnecessary repetition of the same meaning using extra words (e.g., 'return back', 'free gift') — a common CLAT error-spotting target.

CLAT's error-spotting questions draw from a short, recurring list of grammatical mistakes — recognising the PATTERN of the error is far faster than analysing every sentence from scratch.

The most-tested error categories

  • Subject-verb agreement — singular subjects like 'each', 'every', 'neither', 'either', and collective nouns ('the team', 'the committee') always take a SINGULAR verb; a long phrase between subject and verb doesn't change what the verb must agree with.
  • Tense errors — mixing past and present within one sentence without logical reason ('He was going to the market and buys vegetables' is wrong; should be 'bought').
  • Preposition errors — fixed verb/adjective + preposition pairs that are frequently misused: 'married TO' (not 'with'), 'depend ON' (not 'of'), 'different FROM' (not 'than', in strict usage).
  • Article errors — 'a'/'an'/'the' misuse, especially with uncountable nouns which take no article ('informations' is always wrong; 'information' is uncountable).
  • Redundancy — needless repetition of meaning: 'return back', 'free gift', 'past history', 'repeat again'.
Exam TipStrategy: read the sentence once for overall sense, then re-scan specifically for subject-verb pairs and preposition pairs — these two categories account for the large majority of CLAT error-spotting questions.

Sentence correction questions test the same error categories but require choosing the BEST replacement for an underlined portion — always check that the replacement doesn't introduce a NEW error even while fixing the original one.