Passage Correction Questions and Answers

Answer: A

Correct answer: to accept

Refuse is followed by an infinitive, not a gerund: refused to accept. English divides verbs into three groups on this point, and the division has to be learned rather than reasoned out. Verbs taking the infinitive include refuse, agree, decide, hope, promise, want, expect, manage, offer and fail. Verbs taking the gerund include enjoy, avoid, finish, mind, suggest, admit, deny, consider, risk and postpone. A third group takes either, sometimes with a change of meaning: he stopped smoking means he gave it up, while he stopped to smoke means he paused in order to smoke. Remember, forget, regret and try behave the same way. To accepting is doubly wrong, treating the infinitive marker as though it were a preposition.

Answer: A

Correct answer: ill for

For is used with a period of time and since with a point in time. Three weeks is a duration, so the sentence needs ill for three weeks. The test is to ask what the phrase answers. How long? takes for - for three weeks, for a month, for years. Starting when? takes since - since Monday, since 2021, since she fell ill. Since last week would be correct because last week names a point, but since three weeks never is. From also marks a starting point, but it requires an end point stated or implied - from Monday to Friday - and does not go with the present perfect in this way. During answers when rather than how long. The tense itself is right: a condition beginning in the past and continuing now takes the present perfect continuous.

Answer: E

No correction is required.

Should have thought is the correct perfect modal for a missed opportunity, and calmly sits properly between the auxiliary and the participle. Each alternative breaks the modal's form.

Answer: A

It should read of the things to do.

A superlative selects one from a group, so the group must be plural - the easiest of the things. The easiest of the thing offers no group to choose from.

Answer: D

It should read had prepared.

The preparing happened before the demonstrating, and the demonstrating is past, so the earlier action takes the past perfect. Were prepared is passive and says the patterns prepared us.

Answer: A

Correct answer: No correction required

The sentence is correct, so no improvement is required. Enquire about is the standard construction when the object is a subject of enquiry: enquired about the progress. The verb takes different prepositions in different senses, and the set is worth knowing: enquire about a matter, enquire after a person’s health, enquire of someone for information, enquire into a case when a formal investigation is meant. So the commission enquired into the accident and he enquired after my mother. This makes it a genuine exception to the group of verbs that reject a preposition - discuss, describe, emphasise, investigate - which is precisely why it is worth testing. Candidates trained to strip prepositions from those verbs sometimes remove this one too. Inquire and enquire are variant spellings of the same word, the first more common in American usage.

Answer: B

Correct answer: had he

When a sentence begins with a negative or restrictive adverb, the subject and auxiliary are inverted: hardly had he entered, not hardly he had entered. The adverbs that trigger this inversion are worth learning as a list: hardly, scarcely, barely, no sooner, seldom, rarely, never, little, nowhere, not only and under no circumstances. Each of them, when placed first, forces the word order of a question onto a statement. Two further points complete the construction. Hardly and scarcely are followed by when, while no sooner is followed by than. And the earlier of the two past actions takes the past perfect while the later takes the simple past - had entered followed by went out. Did he fails because the sentence already has the auxiliary had.

Answer: D

It should read should be heavily fined.

Should takes the bare infinitive, and the evaders are punished rather than punishing, so the passive be fined is required. Heavily is the adverb modifying fined.

Answer: D

It should read had given.

He delivered the speech, so the verb is active. Had been given would mean someone presented a speech to him. The past perfect is right, since the speech came before the meeting.

Answer: B

It should read over the heads of.

To talk over someone's head is the idiom for pitching above their understanding, and with several pupils the plural heads is needed. Above the heads is not the fixed form.