Quick answer. In G3 SEC English Paper 1 Editing, correct grammatical errors rather than rewriting the whole report. Find the actual subject, follow the timeline and make the smallest change that restores grammatical meaning.
What this guide includes. The official 2027 editing format, precise grammar explanations, a fully worked original ten-error passage, contrast cases, answer checks, a transfer routine and links to the Physics and Mathematics evidence owners.
Editing begins with a reading decision
A student has ten minutes left and sees a paragraph about pendulum measurements. Several verbs look wrong. The instinct is to rewrite the paragraph into better English, improve the scientific conclusion and add clarifying words. That instinct can cause trouble in an editing exercise. The task is not asking for a new report. It asks the candidate to find and correct grammatical errors in the given prose.
A reliable editor reads once to understand what the paragraph is saying, then reads again to locate its grammatical structure. The sequence matters. Without a sense of time, subject and reference, a candidate may replace the correct word with an incorrect one or ‘correct’ a sentence that is already grammatical. A useful edit should change only what is necessary.
This volume continues an original three-subject classroom case: Physics defines the pendulum measurement; Mathematics checks periods and unequal cycle counts; English now repairs the language used to describe those ideas. The central skill belongs to English Paper 1 editing. Scientific terms provide context, but you do not need to know a pendulum formula to identify an incorrect agreement or verb tense.
The official 2027 G3 English requirements
The Singapore-Cambridge SEC starts in 2027. The official G3 English Language syllabus code is K300, with 1184 shown as the reference code used before 2027. K300 includes four papers: Paper 1 Writing, Paper 2 Comprehension, Paper 3 Listening and Paper 4 Oral Communication. Paper 1 lasts one hour fifty minutes, carries 70 marks and contributes 35% of the subject assessment. Its Section A is Editing for ten marks, followed by Situational Writing for thirty and Continuous Writing for thirty.
According to the syllabus, editing uses a short continuous-prose text of no more than 250 words. Candidates identify grammatical errors and write corrections in the spaces provided. Punctuation and spelling errors are not tested in this section. That last detail is important: if you spend your revision time looking only for missing commas, you are rehearsing the wrong task.
The official specification is in the K300 English Language syllabus; the SEAB syllabus index confirms its current code. The questions below are original teaching examples, not an official examination paper or a prediction.
Why a report is a useful grammar test
Scientific prose repeatedly mentions groups, readings, apparatus, comparisons, results and conclusions. These words are perfect places for ordinary grammar errors to hide. ‘The results shows’ sounds plausible if the writer’s attention is on a chart rather than the subject of the verb. ‘One of the readings were’ is another common trap: the nearby plural noun attracts the wrong verb, although the grammatical head of the subject is singular.
A report also moves through time. An introduction may describe what a pendulum does generally, a method may say what students did last week, and an evaluation may discuss what the observations suggest now. The editor must decide which part of the sentence is describing an established procedure, a completed event or a present claim. Blindly changing every verb into the past tense is not editing.
Good editing begins with three small questions. What is the actual subject? When does the action occur? Which noun or idea does the word refer to? These questions reduce guesswork, and they apply equally to an article about travel, medicine, business or history. The scientific context is a tool for practice, not a separate subject examination.
Find the grammatical subject before changing the verb
Look at ‘The mean of the three trials were 14.2 seconds.’ The word ‘trials’ appears close to ‘were’, but it sits inside the phrase ‘of the three trials’. The grammatical head of the subject is ‘mean’, singular. The correction is ‘was’. You can test it by temporarily removing the phrase: ‘The mean was 14.2 seconds.’ The sentence becomes easier to hear.
Now try ‘The three means was recorded separately.’ The head is ‘means’, plural, so ‘were’ is required. The difference between the two sentences is not the scientific topic. It is the relationship between the main noun and its modifiers. This skill is useful in examination passages where long noun phrases conceal the subject.
Do not adopt the simplistic rule that the nearest noun decides the verb. It is sometimes useful to look close to the verb, but grammatical agreement is controlled by the head of the subject phrase. Underline that head before choosing has or have, is or are, was or were, and shows or show.
The one-of construction
Consider ‘One of the strings were longer’. The sentence is about one string selected from a group; the subject is ‘one’, so the verb is ‘was’. The plural noun ‘strings’ is correct because the selection comes from more than one string. Students sometimes try to fix the wrong element by changing ‘strings’ to ‘string’, which can damage the intended meaning.
A related sentence says, ‘Some of the readings was missing.’ Here ‘some’ refers to multiple readings, so ‘were’ is suitable. But ‘Some of the water was spilled’ uses an uncountable noun and the singular verb is appropriate. A mechanical rule such as ‘some always takes plural’ would fail.
English grammar requires the reader to understand the number and meaning of the subject. That is why editing cannot be reduced to memorising pairs of words. In a report, one instrument, several trial readings, and a single mean of many values describe different grammatical quantities. Choose the verb for the actual subject, not for the most conspicuous number in the sentence.
Agreement with every, each and neither
‘Each trial were timed’ needs ‘was’ because ‘each’ singles out a member of the group. ‘Every measurement have a unit’ needs ‘has’ for the same basic reason. These determiners create singular subjects in the familiar constructions used here. It is easy to become distracted by the plural meaning of the group: there are many trials, but the sentence considers them one by one.
‘Neither of the two descriptions is precise’ can take singular agreement in formal standard English as written. The editor must still read the whole sentence and avoid imposing a rigid replacement rule on different constructions. If the provided sentence is already correct, leave it alone.
A helpful exercise is to replace a long subject with a short one while preserving its grammatical number. ‘Each of the teams’ becomes ‘each’; ‘the groups of pupils’ becomes ‘the groups’. Then test the verb. In timed work, this mental substitution is often more reliable than guessing based on what sounds familiar in everyday speech.
Verb tense must follow the stated timeline
A lab report may say, ‘Yesterday the students measures ten oscillations.’ The time marker ‘yesterday’ and the completed event call for ‘measured’. But a general explanation such as ‘A period describes the time for one complete oscillation’ naturally uses the present. Turning the second verb into ‘described’ may be grammatically possible in a different story, yet it would need a different meaning or frame.
A more subtle error occurs when two events are placed in order. ‘After the teacher had explained the method, the students began the trial’ shows that the explanation came before the trial. The past perfect can help make the order explicit where needed. It should not be inserted mechanically into every sentence with two past events.
Read the paragraph for its organising timeline. Is the writer recounting what happened, explaining what remains true, or imagining a conditional case? Time words, surrounding sentences and the intended meaning all matter. A good editor fixes a tense error without rewriting the story into a different sequence.
Consistency does not mean one tense everywhere
An introduction can state, ‘A pendulum repeats a motion about a stable position.’ The next sentence might say, ‘Last Friday our class compared two string lengths.’ The final sentence could say, ‘These results suggest a difference in the tested setups.’ Present, past and present coexist correctly because the sentences perform different jobs.
A student who checks only for uniform verb tense may change the first or third sentence even though both are appropriate. That is a false correction. Instead, ask what relationship each clause has to the rest of the report. General statements often remain present; completed methods are often past; present interpretations can refer to evidence recorded earlier.
Sometimes a passage deliberately shifts perspective through a quotation or hypothetical discussion. Do not ‘repair’ it merely because the tense changes. Locate a real grammatical inconsistency, not a visual pattern that looks untidy. Editing demands judgment about meaning as well as form.
Pronouns should have a recoverable reference
Suppose a paragraph says, ‘The timer and the ruler were placed beside the stand. It was adjusted before the first trial.’ Which object does ‘it’ refer to? The intended meaning is uncertain. That can be a writing problem, but it is not automatically an item that a grammar-only editing exercise asks you to solve. An editor of an actual report could replace ‘it’ with ‘the ruler’ if the evidence confirms that choice.
Consider a different error: ‘Each team recorded their result’ may be acceptable in modern English depending on register and context, including singular they; it should not be marked automatically wrong just because ‘team’ is singular. Good editing respects legitimate variation while recognising clearly ungrammatical relationships.
When a pronoun is being tested, identify its antecedent and grammatical role. ‘They’ refers to people or plural entities in ordinary use, but its modern singular use also matters. Do not substitute a word merely to conform to an oversimplified rule when the original is grammatical and clear.
Articles and determiners in technical prose
An ordinary error is ‘The student used stopwatch’ when a singular countable noun requires an appropriate determiner. ‘A stopwatch’ or ‘the stopwatch’ may be correct depending on whether the instrument has been introduced. An article is part of grammar because it helps mark reference. The first mention might be ‘a stopwatch’; a later mention might be ‘the stopwatch’.
Another example is ‘An uniform procedure was used’, which should read ‘a uniform procedure’ because the word ‘uniform’ starts with a consonant sound. The choice between a and an follows pronunciation, not simply the first written letter. In technical writing, familiar terms can distract students from this everyday rule.
Do not add articles indiscriminately. ‘The students measured time’ can be grammatical without ‘a’ before an uncountable use of ‘time’. Likewise, ‘equipment’ is normally an uncountable noun in standard English. A precise editor sees the structure of the noun phrase before making a change.
Countable and uncountable nouns
A report may refer to ‘three readings’, ‘several observations’, ‘much equipment’ or ‘two pieces of equipment’. These phrases differ because the nouns behave differently. ‘Equipments’ is not standard in the ordinary meaning used here. ‘Instruments’ is countable, so ‘three instruments’ is natural. The correction depends on the writer’s intended meaning.
Another example is ‘The team collected many information.’ ‘Information’ is uncountable, so ‘much information’ is a suitable correction, though ‘several pieces of information’ may be better in a real editorial revision. In an exam editing item, the exact type of space and expected correction matters; do not expand a one-word answer into a rewritten paragraph.
Technical contexts do not exempt ordinary noun rules. The same grammar appears in news reports and school essays. Training with measurement vocabulary prepares you to recognise grammatical structure even when the topic is unfamiliar.
Relative clauses can hide agreement
‘The set of readings that were checked by the teacher was complete’ is grammatical. The clause ‘that were checked’ refers to ‘readings’, plural, while the main verb ‘was’ agrees with ‘set’, singular. A candidate may be tempted to change one verb so both match. That would ignore the fact that the two verbs belong to different clauses.
Now consider ‘The student who record the results is absent.’ The relative pronoun ‘who’ refers to the singular student. In a present-tense statement the verb should be ‘records’; in a past-tense account it may be ‘recorded’. The surrounding timeline decides which is correct.
Break long sentences into clauses. Find the subject for each verb, rather than treating the sentence as though it has only one subject. In editing, the ability to see sentence structure can reveal errors that remain hidden when a student reads solely for the scientific topic.
Parallel structures make procedures readable
A method might state, ‘The students measured the length, recorded the time and calculating the average.’ The first two verbs follow a past-tense pattern, while ‘calculating’ breaks the parallel construction. A suitable correction is ‘calculated’. You can hear the repaired sequence: measured, recorded and calculated.
Not every list must use identical verb endings. ‘Measure the length, record the total time and calculate the mean’ is also correct because all three are imperatives. A sentence might also use infinitives consistently: ‘to measure, to record and to calculate’. The common requirement is grammatical coherence between the coordinated elements.
When editing, look at words linked by and, or and but. Identify the structure being coordinated. If the sentence contains three equivalent actions, the verb forms should usually fit the same frame. This technique is especially effective in instruction passages, where many actions appear in a short space.
Conditionals and the strength of a statement
‘If a reading is unusually large, the team will repeat it’ is a grammatical conditional plan. ‘If the stopwatch failed, the team would repeat the trial’ is another grammatical pattern with a different hypothetical frame. Errors arise when clause structures are mixed without a coherent intended meaning, such as an unmotivated ‘If the stopwatch will fail, the team would repeated it.’
A grammar correction and a scientific correction remain distinct. ‘If the longer string is used, the period always doubles’ is grammatically possible, even though the claim is not supported by the fictional measurements in this series. In a grammar-only task, do not replace ‘always doubles’ merely because the science is doubtful, unless the question separately asks you to evaluate the claim.
This distinction is essential for exam discipline. An English editing answer should correct grammatical errors. A Science evaluation should test whether a claim follows from data. A writer preparing a real public report may need both. Know which task you have been given.
Modifiers must attach to the intended action
A flawed sentence says, ‘After measuring ten swings, the notebook recorded a period.’ Grammatically, the opening phrase makes the notebook seem to have measured the swings. A person measured them, so a fuller editorial repair might read, ‘After measuring ten swings, the student recorded the period in a notebook.’ The original sentence has a dangling modifier problem.
In a one-word error-identification exercise, however, the expected editing items are constrained by the supplied sentence and answer spaces. Not every poor sentence can be repaired with one substituted word. This matters when creating home practice: do not confuse a full copyediting assignment with an authentic short grammar correction task.
When reading a modifier, ask who performed the action. A technical paragraph often contains passive constructions that obscure agency. Clarifying it in ordinary writing helps readers understand the procedure. In an exam, obey the editing instructions rather than expanding the response beyond what is requested.
A complete original editing passage
Read the following fictional passage as a grammar exercise. It has exactly ten deliberately introduced verb-form or agreement errors. The scientific conclusion is intentionally described as a claim rather than endorsed as a fact. Find the ten grammar errors before looking at the corrections below.
Each of the three teams were given a string and a small weight. The teacher ask the teams to measure ten complete oscillations. One of the strings were longer than the other. The students records each trial in a table. Because the longer string have a greater mean period in the sample, several students claim that its period always doubles when its length doubles. The teacher remind them that a comparison of two lengths do not prove a general rule. Every team were instructed to retain the original timings. The final report included the number of cycles as well as the time recorded. Each calculation need a clear denominator.
Do not change every sentence that describes an unsound generalisation. The passage already says that some students made the claim and that the teacher questioned it. The editing exercise tests the grammatical forms, not whether a certain pendulum formula is true. That separation is part of a disciplined reading approach.
Answer key and the reason for every correction
The ten corrections are: (1) were → was after ‘Each of the three teams’; (2) ask → asked for a completed past action; (3) were → was after ‘One of the strings’; (4) records → recorded in the past narrative; (5) have → had in the past account; (6) claim → claimed for the students’ earlier statement; (7) remind → reminded for the teacher’s completed action; (8) do → does after the singular subject ‘a comparison’; (9) were → was after ‘Every team’; and (10) need → needed for the past account.
The grammatical problems do not require the solver to change ‘the period always doubles’. That expression is part of a reported, unsupported student claim. Its factual quality could be discussed in another task, but the editing item asks for grammar. Also note that ‘The final report included…’ is already correct. A common exam error is to change a correct verb while overlooking a nearby error.
Check your own answers by putting each replacement into the entire sentence. Does the subject agree with the verb? Does the tense fit the narrative? Have you changed only the intended word? Correctness should survive rereading, not merely look familiar in a list of substitutions.
Why the answer key is more useful than a score
Imagine scoring eight out of ten. The score says how many errors you found, but not why the two remaining errors escaped. If both involved ‘each’ or ‘one of’, your problem is subject identification. If both were past-tense verbs in a narrative, your weakness is timeline control. If you changed two correct words unnecessarily, you may need to slow the search and verify each proposed edit.
Classify each miss into a small number of grammatical families. Write a short explanation and an original new sentence for the same rule. For instance, after correcting ‘Every team were’, create ‘Every group was ready’ and ‘All groups were ready’. The contrast helps make the grammatical distinction visible.
Then revisit the passage several days later with the answers hidden. The goal is not to memorise the ten words from this one text. It is to recognise the structure when the topic, word order and surrounding vocabulary change. That is how editing becomes a transferable skill rather than a pattern-matching trick.
An exercise in avoiding false positives
The following sentences are grammatical as written: ‘One of the measurements was repeated.’ ‘The results were recorded after the apparatus had settled.’ ‘Each student has a different role.’ ‘The readings, which were taken in the morning, are now in the report.’ ‘The amount of time varied between trials.’ They contain singular and plural nouns close together, but the verb forms follow the appropriate subjects.
Your task is not to change anything. Explain why each sentence is correct. This is harder than it looks for learners who are used to worksheets in which every line is guaranteed to contain an error. In a real editing passage, not every verb needs correction, and making unnecessary changes can waste time.
A useful habit is to ask for positive grammatical evidence. What noun governs this verb? Which clause contains the action? Which time frame is intended? A candidate who can defend a correct sentence has a stronger foundation than one who simply spots suspicious-looking words.
A second editing clinic with different syntax
Consider five short practice items. ‘Neither of the devices were ready’ can be revised to ‘was ready’ in the formal singular construction used here. ‘The number of trials have increased’ needs ‘has’, because the subject is ‘the number’. ‘A number of trials has been repeated’ normally needs ‘have’, because ‘a number of’ here refers to several trials. ‘The findings suggests a difference’ needs ‘suggest’, because ‘findings’ is plural. ‘There was three measurements’ requires ‘were’.
These examples show why memorising only nearest-word patterns is unreliable. ‘The number of’ and ‘a number of’ look similar but behave differently in standard usage. There-constructions place the logical subject after the verb. The verb may therefore be wrong even when the sentence begins with a harmless-looking ‘there’.
After making the correction, read the sentence aloud quietly in your mind. Not every grammatical rule can be heard reliably, but the rereading is a useful final check that the revised sentence remains coherent.
A third clinic on tense consistency
In an original recount, ‘The student begins the trial yesterday and records the result’ should normally be ‘began’ and ‘recorded’ if the whole passage describes a completed event. But a sentence such as ‘The report explains why the student began the trial yesterday’ is coherent: the present report now explains a past event. Do not correct it to ‘explained’ without considering the frame.
Another sentence says, ‘After the team completed the first measurement, it compare the second set with the first.’ In the past narrative, ‘compare’ should be ‘compared’. A sentence says, ‘If the timer is started late, the measured duration may be shortened.’ It describes a general possibility and is already coherent.
The quickest way to find tense inconsistencies is to identify the paragraph’s time anchor. Circle words such as yesterday, during the experiment, now, usually and next week. Then inspect each verb against that anchor. The right choice is contextual rather than mechanical.
Do not turn editing into a vocabulary showcase
A student may think the safest way to impress a marker is to replace ordinary verbs with longer ones. ‘Used’ becomes ‘utilised’, ‘showed’ becomes ‘demonstrated conclusively’, and ‘said’ becomes ‘articulated’. In a grammar correction exercise, these substitutions are beside the point. They can even change the strength of a claim and make a sentence less accurate.
Clear, simple English is often the most reliable choice. ‘The trial showed a difference’ can be preferable to ‘The trial incontrovertibly established a fundamental physical law’, especially where the data come from two classroom conditions. The second sentence is inflated and unsupported. It fails as public communication even if its grammar is superficially polished.
When grammar is the task, repair grammar. When content evaluation is the task, evaluate evidence. When writing is the task, choose vocabulary that accurately serves the reader. Keeping the purposes separate saves time and produces cleaner answers in each part of the syllabus.
The connection to Paper 1 Situational Writing
Editing is one section of Paper 1; Situational Writing is another, with its own purpose, audience and context. If you later write a report about a school activity, you will need correct grammar and also clear selection of relevant facts. The K300 specification includes an expected length of 250–350 words for Situational Writing, based on a given situation involving a visual text. The official assessment criteria reward task fulfilment and effective language.
The skill from this guide is a component of that larger job, not a replacement for it. Before submitting a situational report, check agreement, tense and reference. Then independently check whether every required point is addressed and whether the evidence supports your recommendation. A grammatically correct report can still omit essential information; a complete report can still contain distracting errors.
For a focused route, see the Secondary English Situational Writing guide. It owns the broader writing decision. This volume owns the practical grammar repair in a data-report context.
Comprehension is a different reading job
Paper 2 Comprehension asks students to understand, infer, evaluate and sometimes summarise information. It does not turn every sentence into an editing item. When reading an article that includes a flawed statistical comparison, the comprehension task may ask what the writer claims or whether the language creates a particular effect. A student should answer the question asked, not launch into a grammar correction unless requested.
The pendulum series provides a helpful illustration. A sentence such as ‘Doubling the length always doubles the period’ is grammatically complete but not supported by our invented data. A comprehension question may ask for a qualification or a comparison between two sources. An editing question normally asks for grammatical correction. Recognising these differing purposes prevents off-task answers.
The reader can transfer this skill to news and digital information. First understand what a sentence says. Then decide whether you are assessing grammatical form, the writer’s intended meaning, or the truth of the claim. Each requires its own evidence and method.
What not to correct in the practice passage
Review the phrase ‘a small weight’. It is grammatically acceptable in ordinary English, even though a Physics teacher might prefer the noun ‘bob’ or a more exact technical description of mass. The passage is a language exercise. Replacing every ordinary noun with scientific terminology is not required, and may waste time.
Next consider ‘the longer string have a greater mean period’. The grammatical correction is ‘had’. But technically, period belongs to the oscillating pendulum setup rather than to the string alone. A full science report might rewrite the subject for conceptual accuracy. In the editing passage we repair the designated verb and preserve the context. This distinction makes an exam answer disciplined and a separate science evaluation responsible.
Finally, the expression ‘always doubles’ is factually overconfident in the fictional dataset but it is not a grammatical error. The teacher in the passage challenges that claim. Do not turn a question testing ten grammar errors into a different, self-invented science task.
A fast but careful two-pass method
Use a first pass to understand the passage’s overall timeline, subject and topic. Do not start changing words before you know whether the text describes a completed experiment or a general explanation. In a second pass, isolate each finite verb and find its subject. Check agreement, tense and sentence structure. Inspect determiners, pronouns and coordinated phrases where they appear to require repair.
After identifying a candidate error, test the replacement in the sentence. Ask whether it is standard English and whether it preserves the original meaning. Mark only the necessary change. At the end, reread the entire short passage, paying particular attention to correct sentences that you may have altered unnecessarily.
Do not use this as a rigid timed formula: students vary in speed, and the paper’s overall time has to cover other writing sections. It is a reading routine, not an official SEAB timing instruction. Practise it until it becomes quick enough to support accurate corrections without turning editing into a lengthy rewrite.
When a grammar rule becomes a transferable skill
A learner who understands ‘each of the trials was’ can use the same structure in a history essay, a business report or an email to a teacher. Someone who can maintain a past narrative without changing general definitions can write clearly about a science experiment and also about a personal experience. Grammar is portable because its underlying relationships outlive any single topic.
The bridge begins even at Primary level. The PSLE guide about identifying who said what teaches careful attribution. In G3 editing, similar attention helps distinguish what the students claimed from what the teacher corrected. The Secondary English Editing guide covers wider grammar and error detection.
Those are supporting owners, not duplicates. The present volume focuses on a particular challenge: correcting grammatical form in a fictional scientific report without quietly changing its claims.
Connect language to the actual measured evidence
If the Science volume says three ten-cycle trials totalled 42.6 seconds over thirty complete oscillations, a report should preserve that meaning. English grammar can make the statement readable: ‘Three ten-cycle trials were recorded, and the combined time was 42.6 seconds.’ Mathematics then calculates a mean of 1.42 seconds per cycle. A careless English revision such as ‘Three cycles took 42.6 seconds’ changes the data even though the sentence is grammatical.
This is why public communication requires both language and quantitative checking. The editor must preserve the number of trials, cycles and seconds. The Mathematics guide in Volume 0927 develops the denominator distinctions. The Physics guide in Volume 0926 defines the physical observations.
Use these links when the problem is conceptual; do not use them to replace reading and answering an English editing question on its own terms.
A twenty-minute targeted practice session
Spend four minutes identifying subjects and verbs in five correct sentences. Spend four minutes repairing six agreement errors involving ‘one of’, ‘each’ and collective noun phrases. Spend four minutes tracing the timeline through a short past-tense report. Spend five minutes taking the original ten-error passage without its answer key. Spend the final three minutes classifying your misses and writing a new sentence that tests the same rule.
The routine is a practice suggestion rather than official examination timing. Its purpose is to reduce three common habits: guessing from the nearest noun, changing all verbs to one tense, and replacing correct words merely because a line looks suspicious. A learner who repeatedly misidentifies subjects may need more clause exercises; one who changes meaning while editing should practise minimal corrections.
Track errors by type, not simply by total number. A useful correction log says ‘I treated the plural noun in the of-phrase as the subject’, followed by a correct contrasting example. That kind of note helps the learning travel beyond this exact passage.
Frequently asked questions
Does K300 Paper 1 Editing test spelling and punctuation mistakes?
The official 2027 syllabus says spelling and punctuation errors are not tested in the Editing section. Concentrate on the grammatical errors required by the task.
Should I rewrite a whole sentence if one word is wrong?
Follow the answer format. The editing exercise calls for identifying and correcting grammatical errors; a minimal grammatical replacement is generally the useful discipline.
Is a scientifically false sentence necessarily ungrammatical?
No. Truth and grammatical form are different questions. A sentence can be grammatically correct but not supported by its evidence.
Can I change a correct word if it would sound more sophisticated?
No benefit follows from gratuitous substitutions in a correction task. Preserve the intended meaning and fix the actual error.
What if the story shifts from past to present?
Check the meaning. A report can describe a completed method in the past and a general fact in the present without inconsistency.
How do I know whether I understand an error?
Explain the subject, tense or grammatical relationship, then use the same rule correctly in a new sentence on another topic.
Authoritative examination references
Read the 2027 SEAB G3 syllabus list and the official K300 G3 English Language syllabus. This is an original teaching guide, not an official examination passage.
