Choose the Correct - Incorrect Sentence Questions and Answers

Answer: D

Correct answer: I don't know if snow is falling.

In a noun clause after a verb like know, standard usage prefers whether; if belongs to conditional clauses. The natural sentence is I don't know whether it is snowing.

The other three are sound:

• The odds are against him - odds is plural.
• Let me thread the needle - correct.
• A nurse is taking care of him - correct.

Answer: D

Correct answer: Our school would have won the match if only we had concentrated.

This is a third conditional - a past possibility that did not happen. Its fixed shape is if + past perfect in the condition and would have + past participle in the result.

Why the others fail:

• Our school had won the match if only we have concentrated - both halves are in the wrong tense.
• if we would have concentrated - would never appears in the if clause of a conditional.
• Our school would win the match only if we had concentrated - mixing a present result with a past condition, so the sentence no longer refers to the match that was lost.

Answer: D

Correct answer: In the long room at 4 o'clock there will be a meeting of all the boys who play cricket and football.

The two place-and-time phrases are moved to the front, which leaves a meeting of all the boys who play cricket and football unbroken. Nothing can then be misread as attaching to the wrong noun.

Why the others fail:

• Putting in the long room at 4 o'clock after meeting separates it from of all the boys.
• Putting it at the end makes it look as though the boys play cricket and football in the long room at four.
• There will be in the long room at 4 o'clock a meeting… - the phrases interrupt there will be and its subject.

Answer: A

Correct answer: He carried little Meenu and I on his shoulders.

The pronoun is the object of carried, so it must be me. Drop the other object and the error is plain: nobody would say he carried I.

The other three are sound:

• All that he said had no effect on me - correct.
• Between you and me, the plan is a sound one - between is a preposition and takes me.
• It was I that gave away the prizes - after the verb to be the subject form is correct.

Answer: B

It should read worse than I had expected.

Worse is the comparative and worst the superlative; a comparison between two things - the performance and the expectation - takes the comparative. Rather worst is impossible for the same reason.

Answer: C

Correct answer: The teaching staff would have taken lectures regularly had they known that the Principal would know about it.

The conditional is inverted rather than introduced by if - had they known - which is standard, and the main clause has its would have + participle.

Why the others fail:

• when are asked by the Principal - the subject of the clause is missing.
• The teaching staff had they known that… - the sentence never reaches a main clause.
• he could not be disregarded them - a passive and an object in the same clause.

Answer: B

It should read agonises me most.

What is the subject of the clause, so the verb follows directly without the auxiliary does - the same reason one writes what happened, not what did happen, in a statement. Most then modifies the verb.

Answer: A

Correct answer: I shall inform them this.

Inform takes a person as its object and the matter after of or about: I shall inform them of this. It cannot take two objects as tell can.

The other three are sound:

• He boarded the train - board is transitive and needs no preposition.
• A bunch of keys has been lost - the subject is bunch, so the verb is singular.
• Ask him why he wastes his time - correct indirect question order.

Answer: D

Correct answer: Why did you give false witness ?

The fixed expression is bear false witness. Give collocates with evidence, not with witness.

The other three are sound:

• If it had not been for your folly, you could have been a partner - a correct third conditional.
• The storm having ceased, the sun came out - a correct absolute construction.
• He stipulated for immediate supply of the articles - stipulate for is correct.

Answer: B

Correct answer: His trousers is very dirty.

Trousers is one of the garment nouns that exist only in the plural - like scissors and spectacles - so it takes a plural verb: his trousers are very dirty.

The other three are sound:

• There are not any books on the table - correct.
• The roads of Delhi are wider than those of Calcutta - those keeps the comparison between like things.
• I walk faster than you - correct.