Passage Correction Questions and Answers

Answer: A

It should read can be facilitated by.

Facilitate takes by for the means, not from. Note also that facilitate means to make easier, while felicitate means to congratulate - two of the options offer the wrong verb entirely.

Answer: A

It should read had taken nor will ever take.

He never has take is impossible: the first verb needs its own participle. With never in the first clause the second must be joined by nor, and each verb needs the form its auxiliary requires.

Answer: A

Correct answer: is

Furniture is uncountable and takes a singular verb: the furniture is of excellent quality. It has no plural, so furnitures is also wrong, and it cannot take a or an. To refer to one item, a unit noun is required: a piece of furniture, two items of furniture. The same treatment applies to a group of nouns that are countable in many Indian languages but not in English: information, advice, luggage, baggage, machinery, stationery, equipment, scenery, poetry, evidence, bread and news. Each takes a singular verb, takes no -s, and is quantified with much and less rather than many and fewer. Note that the plural offices in the intervening phrase has no bearing here - the subject remains the furniture.

Answer: C

It should read he or she has access.

The subject is anyone, a third-person indefinite pronoun, so the pronoun referring back to it must also be third person. Shifting to you in mid-sentence breaks the agreement.

Answer: B

Correct answer: were divided

A collective noun takes a plural verb when the members are acting or thinking as individuals rather than as one body. Here the jury is explicitly divided, so its members are not acting as a unit, and were divided is correct. The clinching evidence is the pronoun their later in the same sentence. A singular verb with a plural pronoun would be internally inconsistent, and examiners often plant that clue. The contrasting case takes the singular: the jury has reached a verdict, where the jury acts as one. So the committee has decided but the committee were arguing among themselves. The test is simple - ask whether the sentence describes one act by the group or several acts by its members. The same treatment applies to team, family, government, audience, crowd and staff.

Answer: C

It should read cannot always express.

One conveys a message but expresses oneself; convey ourselves is not idiomatic. Cannot is also written as one word in standard usage.

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: B

It should read were deferred till.

Deferring is postponing to a later time, and the preposition for a point in time is till or until. Deferred into is not English, and the past tense must match was in the first clause.

Answer: A

Correct answer: when

Scarcely and hardly pair with when; only no sooner pairs with than. Both of these are correct: Scarcely had the meeting begun when the power failed, and No sooner had the meeting begun than the power failed. Two features of the construction go together with the pairing. When the sentence opens with scarcely, hardly or no sooner, the subject and auxiliary are inverted - scarcely had the meeting - because a negative or restrictive adverb has been fronted. The same inversion follows seldom, rarely, never, little and not only. And the earlier of the two actions takes the past perfect while the later takes the simple past, which is why had begun is followed by failed rather than by had failed.

Answer: B

It should read get the most severe.

Severe is an adjective describing punishment, so its superlative is the most severe. Mostly means for the greater part and cannot form a superlative at all.