Easy Tricks to Solve Phrase Replacement With Examples

Tips to solve phrase replacement

Questions on sentence replacement or phrase improvement are very common in bank exams. These questions are designed in such a way so that the candidate’s grammatical knowledge can be judged accurately. 

A question will be given with a part of it being underlined. Five options will be provided that will state the alternative ways of writing the underlined part of the statement. 

Now, a lot of students face difficulty in solving these types of questions. So we have brought to you some of the tips and tricks that will surely help you score better in this section from now on. 

Things to be Remembered

• Remember that the correct option will be grammatically correct and form a proper meaningful sentence when replaced.
• Read the sentence carefully to understand the meaning of the sentence before you decide to choose the option.
• Try eliminating those options which are grammatically incorrect. Most of the time the other options are grammatically incorrect or simply doesn't go with the particular statement given in the question.
• Find out the error in the underlined part of the statement and then select from the options. Remember to check the tense and the verb. Many a times the tense is written wrongly or the verb is misplaced.
• The underlined part of the statement may have more than one error so don’t overlook the other mistakes if any.
• Once you have chosen the correct option try to replace it and read the sentence again. Make sure that the sentence has a proper structure and meaning. Most of the time this trick works out the best.
• Make sure that the meaning of the sentence doesn’t change while you chose the correct answer. The sentence needs to be perfectly unambiguous.
• Always read the statement twice before you select the answer and cross check once again after you have found the correct answer to avoid any negative marks. 

However, candidates should have a clear knowledge of the basics like Vocabulary, Tense, Subject verb agreement, Modifiers and idioms and phrases. Once you know these, the above tricks can be applied easily to solve the questions.

Here are a few examples with explanations:

1) One of the factor for her failure is the lack of concentration.

A. One of the factors

B. One off the factor

C. Of all the factor

D. The mainly factor

E. None of these

ANSWER: Option A is the correct answer as we say “one of the factors” because we are talking about just one among many factors.

2) More than one person was killed in the accident.

A. Are killed

B. Is killed

C. Have been killed

D. Were killed

E. None of these

ANSWER: Option D is the correct answer as the sentence is taking about a past incident and moreover ‘were’ is used because more than one person means it is specifying a plural term.

3) Had I met Rahul, I should have met him in public, which would give me more mileage.

A. While I met Rahul, I should have

B. Had I met Rahul, I will have

C. When I met Rahul, I would have

D. Had I met Rahul, I would have

E. None of these.

ANSWER: Option D is the correct answer as we know that when a sentence begins with “Had I” it is always followed by “would “.

4) The new highway development program is building both roads and improving mobility to reduce logistic cost.

A. is both building roads

B. has been both building roads

C. is both building road

D. was building both road

E. None of these

ANSWER: Option A is the correct answer as ‘both building roads’ is the correct term. The phrase when read out separately seems to be correct but when you read the entire sentence you should realize that the statement is talking about two things i.e., building roads and improving mobility which is why the term both has been used at the beginning.

5) U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton made clear that time is ran out for diplomacy over Iran’s nuclear program and said talks aimed at preventing Tehran from acquiring a nuclear weapon would resume in mid-April.

A. Runs out

B. has been running out

C. running out

D. rans out

E. None of these

ANSWER: Option C is the correct answer as the phrase ‘ran out’ is completely wrong. Moreover the sentence is in present tense so ‘is running out’ would be the most accurate.

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