Tenses, articles and prepositions - English

On this page

1. Tenses
2. Articles
3. Prepositions
4. The papers blanks, answered
How this is examined

Cases checked to exist. Read the judgment before quoting a holding.

Every case cited here has been checked to exist — the citation resolves and names the right parties. The propositions attributed to each case have not been verified line by line against the judgment. Case names link through to the full judgment: read it before quoting a holding in an examination answer, and never carry a proposition from notes into court on trust.

The examinable core. Every General English paper opens Section B with “Fill in the blanks with suitable articles/prepositions (any 5)” for 5 marks (Q.8(A)(i) in the 80-mark paper; a ten-blank passage in the 100-mark paper). The blanks are simple sentences, so marks are lost only through carelessness about the sound of the next word (an before a vowel sound) and about fixed preposition pairs (angry with a person, fond of).

1. Tenses

Tense shows the time of an action. There are three times (present, past, future) and four aspects of each (simple, continuous, perfect, perfect continuous), giving twelve forms.

Form	Present	Past	Future
Simple	He writes	He wrote	He will write
Continuous	He is writing	He was writing	He will be writing
Perfect	He has written	He had written	He will have written
Perfect continuous	He has been writing	He had been writing	He will have been writing

Uses that examiners check:

Simple present for habits, general truths and fixed timetables: The sun rises in the east. The court sits at 10.30 a.m.
Present continuous for an action going on now: The witness is giving evidence. Verbs of state (know, believe, own, belong) are not normally used in the continuous: say I know him, not I am knowing him.
Present perfect for a past action with a present result, without a stated past time: The court has delivered its judgment. Do not combine it with yesterday or last year: He delivered it yesterday.
Past perfect for the earlier of two past actions: The accused had left before the police arrived.
Perfect continuous with since (a point of time) and for (a period): He has been practising since 2019 / for six years.
In clauses of time and condition, use the present for a future idea: I will sign when he comes (not when he will come).

2. Articles

A and an are the indefinite articles; the is the definite article.

A or an

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

an before a vowel sound: an apple, an inkpot, an elephant, an honest man, an hour, an M.L.A., an LL.B. graduate;
a before a consonant sound: a book, a university, a European, a one-rupee coin, a useful animal, a lawyer.

Uses of a / an

With a singular countable noun mentioned for the first time: She made a mistake.
For one of a class: He is an actor. A cow is a useful animal.
In the sense of “per”: twice a week, Rs. 50 a kilo.
In exclamations with what and such: What a great win!

Uses of the

For something already mentioned or known to both speakers: The inkpot was broken by her.
For things that are unique: the sun, the moon, the earth, the sky. Hence The moon shines brightly.
With superlatives and ordinals: the cleverest boy, the first time, the last day.
With names of rivers, seas, oceans, mountain ranges, groups of islands, newspapers and holy books: the Ganga, the Himalayas, the Hindu, the Bhagavad Gita.
With a singular noun standing for the whole class: The cow is a useful animal (also correct with a).
With musical instruments and with an adjective used as a noun: She plays the veena. The rich should help the poor.
For a specific institution or body: the Supreme Court, the Constitution, the Parliament of India (but Parliament alone is also used without the article).

No article

Not before proper nouns of persons, cities and countries (Ravi, Mangaluru, India); not before abstract and uncountable nouns used generally (Honesty is the best policy. Justice delayed is justice denied); not before meals, games, languages and days (after lunch, plays cricket, speaks Kannada, on Sundays); not before school, college, church, court, prison, bed when used for their main purpose (He goes to school; the accused was sent to prison).

3. Prepositions

A preposition shows the relation of a noun or pronoun to another word. The ones the papers test fall into three groups.

Time

at a point of time: at 9 o’clock, at noon, at night;
on days and dates: on Monday, on Sundays, on 26 January;
in months, years, seasons and parts of the day: in May, in 1949, in the morning;
since a point of time and for a period (with the perfect); by for a deadline; within a period.

Place and movement

at a small or exact place (at the bus stand), in a large place or inside (in Mangaluru, in the court hall);
to for direction: Ravi went to Mangaluru. into for movement inside: He walked into the room.
between two, among more than two; beside (next to) and besides (in addition to).

Fixed pairs (prepositions after particular words)

Expression	Example
angry with a person, at a thing	My father is angry with me.
fond of	The children are fond of sweets.
associate with	Don’t associate with dishonest boys.
accused of; charged with	He is accused of theft and charged with murder.
comply with; abide by	The parties must abide by the award.
superior / inferior / prior to	This right is prior to that claim.
married to; divorced from	She was married to a lawyer.
liable for a debt, liable to a penalty	He is liable to a fine.
refrain from; prevent from	Refrain from smoking.
agree with a person, to a proposal	He agreed to the terms.

Trap. Do not add a preposition after verbs that take a direct object: discuss the matter (not discuss about), enter the room (not enter into the room, though one enters into a contract), reach the station, request him, attend the meeting. And it is meet a lawyer (no preposition): “He must meet a lawyer” tests the article, not a preposition.

4. The papers’ blanks, answered

January 2026 (80 marks), Q.8(A)(i): She made a mistake. The moon shines brightly. The inkpot was broken by her (An inkpot is also acceptable if it is any inkpot). My father is angry with me. Don’t associate with dishonest boys. She will attend the meeting at 9 o’clock.

June 2025 (80 marks): A (or The) cow is a useful animal. He is an actor. This is the first time I have visited a town. My father is angry with me. The children are fond of sweets. We do not go to school on Sundays.

January 2025 (80 marks): He must meet a lawyer. An elephant killed him. He is the cleverest boy in the class. Ravi went to Mangaluru. Bhavana is fond of music. He came in the morning.

January 2026 (100 marks), passage: A computer is an electronic device which processes the information in a pre-defined manner. For a layman, a computer is a super calculator with a really big display. It has no brain to function by itself but it functions with great accuracy. (The passage is taken from the comprehension passage in the 80-mark paper, which gives “Computer is an electronic device that accepts data, processes information in a pre-defined fashion”; the first blank can be left as A, and information is uncountable, so the is optional.)

How this is examined

Five or six one-line blanks (1 mark each) in the 80-mark paper, a ten-blank passage in the 100-mark paper. Write the whole sentence with the filled word underlined; the examiner then sees the answer in context. The recurring items are a / an by sound, the with unique things and superlatives, and the pairs angry with, fond of, associate with, at a clock time and on a day.