CDS 2026 (I) English, question 114

Topic: Spotting errors

Answers by SolvedPaper. UPSC has not released the official answer key for this paper yet. We will update it when they do.

Directions · Q111 to Q115

Each item in this section has a sentence with three underlined parts labelled (a), (b) and (c). Read each sentence to determine whether there is an error in any underlined part and indicate your response on the Answer Sheet accordingly. If there is no error, indicate your response as (d).

Q114

Paridhi knew she still had to buy the groceries pick up dry-cleaning and prepare the presentation for the next day’s meeting.

  1. (a) Paridhi knew she still had to buy the groceries
  2. (b) pick up dry-cleaning
  3. (c) and prepare the presentation for the next day’s meeting.
  4. (d) No error.Correct answer

Solution.

Answer: (d) No error.

  1. After had to, the sentence lists three actions: buy the groceries, pick up dry-cleaning and prepare the presentation.
  2. All three verbs are in the same base form, so the list is parallel and the single to covers all three.
  3. The tenses (knew, still had to) and the possessive next day's are correct.

Trap: A comma is missing after groceries, but these items test grammar and usage, not punctuation, so no underlined part has an error.