Chapter 5 of 518% of exam
Common Usage Errors
Some mistakes appear often in everyday writing. This chapter collects frequent errors with gerunds, countable nouns, articles, and past tense, and shows the corrected version so you can recognize them.
Gerunds After Certain Verbs
Verbs like 'enjoy', 'finish', and 'avoid' are followed by a gerund: 'enjoys reading'. Using an infinitive ('to read') after 'enjoy' is a common error.
Countable Nouns and Articles
Countable plurals take 'many' and 'are' ('too many people are'), while 'a' or 'an' depends on the following sound: 'an honest person' because the 'h' is silent.
Simple Past with Time Markers
A finished action at a stated past time uses the simple past: 'I visited Paris last summer.' The present perfect cannot appear with a specific past time like 'last summer'.