Passage Correction Questions and Answers

Answer: E

Correct answer: fewer

Fewer is used with countable nouns and less with uncountable ones. Books can be counted, so fewer books is correct. The pairing runs right through: fewer people but less water; fewer mistakes but less trouble; fewer coins but less money. The same division governs many and much, and number and amount. There are recognised exceptions where a countable noun is treated as a single quantity: less than five miles, less than ten years, less than a hundred rupees - distances, periods and sums of money. Lesser is not a quantity word at all but means of smaller importance, as in the lesser of two evils. Little would need no comparative marker and could not take than, and least is a superlative, which cannot be used in a two-way comparison.

Answer: C

It should read had left.

The orator's leaving happened before the audience stood, so the past perfect is right - had left. Had been left is passive and says the orator was abandoned there.

Answer: B

Correct answer: made him write

After make in the active voice, the verb that follows takes the bare infinitive - no to. Hence made him write. The verbs that behave this way are worth learning as a group: make, let, bid, see, hear, watch, feel and help, along with the modal auxiliaries. So let him go, I saw her leave, he helped me carry it. The curious exception is that make takes the full infinitive in the passive: he was made to write the answer again. The to reappears when the sentence is turned round, which is why both forms are heard and confused. Made him writing fails because a gerund cannot follow make in this construction, and made he write fails because the pronoun is the object of made and must be objective.

Answer: A

It should read take it for granted.

Take for granted is the fixed phrase, with for. The it is the anticipatory object standing in for the that-clause that follows.

Answer: B

No correction is required.

Attempt takes the infinitive - attempts to acquaint us. Attempts at would need a noun or gerund after it and changes the rhythm of the sentence without improving it, and the two verbs joined by and are already parallel: is and attempts.

Answer: B

Correct answer: is

Neither is singular and governs the verb: neither of the two proposals is acceptable. The plural proposals is the object of the preposition of, and no noun inside a prepositional phrase can be the subject of a sentence. Deleting the phrase leaves neither is acceptable, which settles it. The same holds for either, each, every one, none of the two, everyone, anybody and nobody. A different rule governs neither…nor when it joins two subjects: there the verb agrees with the nearer one, so neither the chairman nor the members were present is correct. The two constructions look alike and are frequently confused. None is the one genuinely flexible word in the group - it may take either verb depending on whether it means not one or not any - but none of the two is always singular.

Answer: D

It should read should unitedly undertake.

Should is a modal and takes the bare infinitive, so undertake, not undertook or undertaken. The adverb unitedly sits between the modal and the verb.

Answer: D

It should read even though it rained heavily.

Despite of is a doubling - it is either despite the rains or in spite of the rains. The keyed option replaces the phrase with a clause, which needs a subject and a finite verb: it rained heavily.

Answer: D

It should read impose it on them.

What is imposed is the discipline, and the people are those on whom it is imposed. The original reverses them, making the people the thing imposed.

Answer: D

Correct answer: laughing

Cannot help, meaning to be unable to refrain, is followed by a gerund: could not help laughing. The expression is idiomatic and must be learned as a unit, since the same verb in its ordinary sense of assisting takes a different pattern: he helped me carry the box or helped me to carry it. A close relative is cannot but, which takes a bare infinitive: she could not but laugh. The two are frequently blended into the non-standard could not help but laugh, which mixes the constructions - widely heard, but not what an examination will accept. Other expressions taking a gerund in the same fixed way include it is no use, it is worth, look forward to, feel like and cannot stand: it is no use arguing, the book is worth reading, I feel like resting.