VERBAL 1 — GRAMMAR, COMPLETE

From "I don't know what a preposition is" to exam level

Read this first — it changes everything about how you study

TCS sentence completion has no options. You are given a sentence with a blank and you type one word. Twenty-five seconds, then it locks.

That makes this a production test, not a recognition test. You cannot eliminate your way to an answer. You cannot recognise the right word among four. You must produce it, spelled correctly, first time.

Everything below is organised around that. Grammar is not background knowledge here — for most blanks, grammar is the answer, because a preposition, an article, a tense or a connector has exactly one correct form that you either know or don't.

Part	What it covers
1	The eight parts of speech — and the 5-second test that identifies a blank
2	Sentence structure: subject, predicate, clauses
3	⭐ Subject–verb agreement — 12 rules
4	⭐ Tenses — all 12, and the 5 that decide marks
5	Articles
6	⭐ Prepositions — the collocation lists you must memorise
7	Pronouns
8	Adjectives, adverbs and comparison
9	Modifiers and parallelism
10	Conditionals
11	Active and passive voice
12	Reported speech
13	⭐ Conjunctions and connectors
14	The error checklist
15	60 drill sentences with answers

PART 1 — THE EIGHT PARTS OF SPEECH

Every word does one of eight jobs. You need this for one practical reason: before you can fill a blank you must know what kind of word goes in it.

Part	Job	Examples
Noun	names something	manager, office, honesty, Delhi, team
Pronoun	stands in for a noun	he, she, it, they, who, which, himself
Verb	action or state	write, is, seems, have, become
Adjective	describes a noun	efficient, three, blue, careful
Adverb	describes a verb, adjective or other adverb	quickly, very, yesterday, carefully
Preposition	shows relation	in, on, at, by, with, of, for
Conjunction	joins	and, but, because, although, however
Interjection	exclamation	oh!, alas!

⭐ The 5-second test — do this on every blank

Look at what sits immediately before and after the blank. That tells you the part of speech before you think about meaning at all.

What surrounds the blank	What goes in it
`the ____ manager`	adjective (describes manager)
`he ____ quickly`	verb
`he ran ____`	adverb
`depends ____ the weather`	preposition
`____ he was tired, he continued`	conjunction (contrast)
`a ____ of students`	noun (group, number, batch)
`has ____ the report`	past participle (submitted, written)

Why this matters so much with no options: the part of speech narrows an infinite space to a small one. "The committee reached a ____ decision" — you know instantly it is an adjective, and the sentence direction gives you unanimous or final.

Word families — the same idea in four forms

Because you must produce the word, you need the right form, not just the right root.

Noun	Verb	Adjective	Adverb
decision	decide	decisive	decisively
success	succeed	successful	successfully
strength	strengthen	strong	strongly
analysis	analyse	analytical	analytically
difference	differ	different	differently
ability	enable	able	ably
length	lengthen	long	—
depth	deepen	deep	deeply
clarity	clarify	clear	clearly
simplicity	simplify	simple	simply
justification	justify	justifiable	justifiably
maintenance	maintain	—	—
conclusion	conclude	conclusive	conclusively
persuasion	persuade	persuasive	persuasively
significance	signify	significant	significantly
dependence	depend	dependent	dependently
competence	—	competent	competently
efficiency	—	efficient	efficiently
response	respond	responsive	responsively
consistency	—	consistent	consistently

Drill: cover the right three columns and produce them from the noun. That is exactly the skill the exam tests.

PART 2 — SENTENCE STRUCTURE

Subject and predicate

The new project manager   |   approved the revised proposal yesterday.
        SUBJECT           |            PREDICATE
     (who / what)         |   (what they do + everything else)

Finding the subject is the single most useful skill in this file, because the most-tested rule depends on it.

How: find the verb first, then ask "who or what is doing this?"

"The list of approved items is on the table." — verb is is; what is on the table? The list, not the items.

Clauses

INDEPENDENT — can stand alone          "He submitted the report."
DEPENDENT   — cannot stand alone       "Although he was late..."

A dependent clause opens with a subordinator: although, because, since, if, when, while, unless, after, before, though, whereas. It must attach to an independent clause.

Phrase vs clause

Phrase — no subject+verb pair: in the morning, having finished the work
Clause — has a subject and a verb: when the morning came

Why it matters: despite and in spite of take a phrase; although takes a clause. That one distinction is a common blank.

PART 3 — ⭐ SUBJECT–VERB AGREEMENT

The most tested rule in the section. Core idea: singular subject → singular verb.

He writes.       They write.
The boy runs.    The boys run.

Confusing but essential: for verbs, an -s ending means singular (he writes). For nouns, -s means plural (boys). They run in opposite directions.

Rule 1 — ⭐ Ignore everything between subject and verb

✗ The box of chocolates ARE on the table.
✓ The box of chocolates IS on the table.          subject = box

✗ The quality of the products HAVE improved.
✓ The quality of the products HAS improved.       subject = quality

✗ A bouquet of flowers WERE delivered.
✓ A bouquet of flowers WAS delivered.             subject = bouquet

Technique: mentally delete the phrase between subject and verb, then check.

These phrases never change the verb:

of · with · along with · as well as · together with · including · in addition to · accompanied by · besides · rather than · no less than

✓ The manager, along with his team, IS attending.
✓ The teacher, as well as the students, WAS present.
✓ The principal, accompanied by the staff, HAS arrived.

Rule 2 — ⭐ Either/or, neither/nor → the verb matches the NEAREST subject

✓ Neither the players nor the coach WAS expecting rain.      nearest = coach
✓ Neither the coach nor the players WERE expecting rain.     nearest = players
✓ Either the manager or the employees HAVE to decide.
✓ Not only the students but also the teacher WAS late.

The proximity rule. Look only at the noun immediately before the verb.