English is the section many Odia-medium students find the most difficult, because they learnt Maths and Science in Odia while most competitive exams ask questions in English. At Odisha Career we give special attention to English. With the right method, it becomes a scoring section within a few months.
What is asked in the English section
- Vocabulary: synonyms, antonyms, one-word substitution, idioms and phrases, spelling.
- Grammar: error spotting, sentence improvement, fill in the blanks, active–passive voice, direct–indirect speech.
- Reading comprehension: a passage followed by questions on meaning, tone and vocabulary.
- Verbal ability: para jumbles, cloze test, sentence rearrangement.
- Descriptive English (OPSC, OSSC, Banking Mains): essay, letter and précis writing.
Learning words with the root method
Instead of memorising words one by one, learn the root (Latin or Greek origin) and you can understand many words at once. Watch our video lesson in Odia:
| Root | Meaning | Example words |
|---|---|---|
| bene | good | benefit, benevolent, beneficiary |
| mal | bad | malfunction, malicious, malnutrition |
| chron | time | chronology, chronic, synchronise |
| dict | say, speak | predict, dictate, contradict |
| spect | look, see | inspect, spectator, retrospect |
| port | carry | transport, portable, export |
| graph | write | autograph, biography, paragraph |
| voc / vok | call, voice | vocal, advocate, provoke |
Common grammar errors asked in exams
- One of the students are absent ✗ → One of the students is absent ✓ (“one” is singular).
- He is senior than me ✗ → He is senior to me ✓ (senior, junior, superior, inferior take “to”).
- I am living here since 2020 ✗ → I have been living here since 2020 ✓.
- Each of the boys have a book ✗ → Each of the boys has a book ✓.
- Neither Ram nor his friends was present ✗ → Neither Ram nor his friends were present ✓ (the verb agrees with the nearer subject).
A simple daily routine
- Read one editorial from an English newspaper every day and underline new words.
- Learn 10 new words daily with their meaning, synonym and one example sentence. Our daily vocabulary helps with this.
- Revise one grammar rule a day and solve 20 error-spotting questions on it.
- Solve one reading comprehension passage with a timer.
- Once a week, write a 250-word essay and get it checked.
English is a language, and every language has four parts: reading, writing, speaking and listening. Practise all four, and the exam section takes care of itself.