Articles, Prepositions & Voice

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Three small topics that between them are worth several marks. Articles and prepositions reward memorised rules rather than reasoning — there is no logic to superior to, you simply have to know it.

Articles: A or An

The choice depends on the sound the next word starts with, not the letter.

a before a consonant sound — a country, a book, a university (yoo-), a one-rupee note (wun-), a European

an before a vowel sound — an icon, an apple, an hour (silent h), an MLA (em-), an honest man

Say the word aloud in your head. "University" begins with a vowel letter but a consonant sound, so it takes a. "Hour" begins with a consonant letter but a vowel sound, so it takes an. These two are examined constantly.

Prepositions After Adjectives

Adjective	Preposition	Example
superior, inferior	to (never than)	superior to anyone
senior, junior	to	senior to me
prefer	to	prefer tea to coffee
afraid, fond, capable	of	afraid of the dark
good, bad	at	good at mathematics
angry (with a person)	with	angry with him
married, related	to	married to her

Passive Voice

Structure: object + correct form of be + past participle + by + subject.

The form of be must match both the tense and the number of the new subject.

Worked Examples from Real Papers

TS Police Constable 2022 — Q5

India is ______ country. Every Indian is ______ icon in helping the poor people. (a, an / an, a / a, the / of, the)

"Country" begins with a consonant sound → a.
"Icon" begins with a vowel sound → an.
Answer: a, an.

TS Police Constable 2022 — Q16

I never feel that I am superior ______ anyone. (than / to / for / on)

Superior comes from Latin and takes to, never than, even though it carries a comparative meaning.
Answer: to.
Learn the set together: superior, inferior, senior, junior, prior and prefer all take to. "Than" is offered here precisely because the meaning feels comparative.

TS Police Constable 2022 — Q9

Rahul and his friends ______ invited to the party by me. (is / have been / was / had)

"Invited … by me" marks this as passive, so the blank needs a form of be plus the participle.
The subject "Rahul and his friends" is plural, which rules out is and was.
"Had invited" would be active and would need an object, so had fails too.
Answer: have been.

TS Police Constable 2022 — Q15

I have done a ______ deal of work. (big / great / huge / enormous)

This is a fixed collocation: the phrase is a great deal of.
"Big", "huge" and "enormous" all mean roughly the same thing, but none of them combines with "deal".
Answer: great.
Note: when three options are near-synonyms and one is not, the question is testing a set phrase rather than meaning. The odd word out is usually correct.

Collocations cannot be reasoned out. "A great deal of", "take a decision", "do a favour" and "make an effort" are simply fixed. Where several options mean the same thing, you are being tested on the phrase, not the meaning.

Also see: Subject-Verb Agreement · Tenses · Synonyms & Antonyms