Choose the Correct - Incorrect Sentence Questions and Answers

Answer: B

Correct answer: All the boy scouts wear half-pants.

Half-pants is not standard English; the garment is shorts. It is a common regional coinage rather than a grammatical slip, but it is the odd one out here.

The other three are sound:

• He feels bad about the defeat - after feel an adjective is correct, not badly.
• He hopes to secure good marks - hope takes a to-infinitive.
• Sachin is the Bradman of India - a correct use of the definite article before a proper noun used as a type.

Answer: D

Correct answer: Fortunately in thirty seven bomb-blasts only five lives were lost.

Fortunately is a sentence adverb: it comments on the whole statement, so it belongs at the front, where it cannot be mistaken for a comment on any single part.

Why the others fail:

• Placing it after the blasts leaves it ambiguous between the blasts and the losses.
• only five lives were fortunately lost - this says the losing was fortunate.
• In fortunately thirty seven bomb-blasts - the adverb now modifies the number, which is nonsense.

Answer: D

Correct answer: He wasn't rich by any means, but he never turned away anyone who needed help.

The two facts stand in contrast - little money, yet unfailing generosity - and but is the connective that marks a contrast between two independent clauses.

Why the others fail:

• Since he lacked needed money, he never turned down anyone - since makes poverty the cause of his generosity, which reverses the sense.
• although subordinates the wrong half, leaving the emphasis on his poverty.
• Being not rich by any means - the negative is misplaced; English says not being rich.

Answer: A

Correct answer: I found out that he was guilty.

The phrasal verb find out is correctly used, and the reported clause keeps the past tense in line with found.

Why the others fail:

• Much pains has been taken - pains in the sense of effort is plural and needs have.
• The jury was divided in their opinions - a collective noun takes a plural verb when its members act separately, and their already admits as much: the jury were divided.
• Neither of the men were tall - neither is singular, so it needs was.

Answer: B

Correct answer: The committee is divided on this issue.

A collective noun takes a singular verb when the body acts as one and a plural verb when its members act separately. Being divided is precisely the members acting separately, so it must be the committee are divided.

The other three are sound:

• Bread and butter is wholesome food - a single dish, so singular.
• It being a wet day, we kept indoors - a correct absolute construction.
• The cattle are grazing in the fields - cattle is always plural.

Answer: A

It should read images.

What is worshipped is an image of a god - a representation made for that purpose. A shape is merely a form, and carries none of the sense of a made likeness.

Answer: C

Correct answer: He blew out his brains with a gun, after bidding his wife goodbye.

With a gun names the instrument of blew out, so it belongs immediately after the object of that verb. The sentence then reads in the order of events: the farewell, then the act.

Why the others fail:

• He blew out with a gun his brains - the instrument is wedged between verb and object.
• after bidding his wife goodbye with a gun - this makes the gun the means of saying goodbye.
• With a gun, he blew out his brains - grammatical, but fronting the instrument gives it an emphasis the sentence does not want, and the standard order keeps it with the verb.

Answer: C

Correct answer: This is one of the best films that has been produced this year.

In one of the + plural noun + that, the relative clause describes the whole group, not the single item. The antecedent of that is films, so the verb must be plural: one of the best films that have been produced.

The other three are sound:

• She is one of the best mothers that have ever lived - the same construction, correctly plural.
• None of these words are now current - none takes a plural verb when it refers to a plural noun.
• Sam, as well as Alex and Jack, likes milk - as well as does not make a subject plural.

Answer: B

Correct answer: Starch is an antidote of iodine.

An antidote is to or for something, never of it.

The other three are sound:

• She has an abhorrence of frogs - abhorrence of is correct.
• This is the inference from his statement - an inference is drawn from something.
• I expostulated with Ravi about his decision - one expostulates with a person about a matter.

Answer: C

Correct answer: He will not pay unless he is compelled

Unless already means if not, so the clause it introduces stays positive and in the present tense even though the main clause is future.

Why the others fail:

• unless he is not compelled - a double negative, which says the opposite of what is meant.
• unless he will be compelled - a clause of condition or time does not take will.
• till he is compelled - till marks time, not condition, and changes the meaning.