Passage Correction Questions and Answers

Answer: B

Correct answer: most remarkable

Unique is an absolute adjective: it means one of a kind, and something either is or is not. It therefore admits no degrees, so most unique, more unique and very unique are all illogical. The sentence needs a genuinely gradable adjective, and most remarkable supplies one. Other absolutes behave the same way and are worth knowing as a group: perfect, complete, entire, universal, eternal, supreme, extreme, chief, ideal, impossible and dead. Nothing is more perfect or fairly dead. Where a speaker really wants to soften or qualify one, English offers almost unique or nearly perfect - adverbs of approximation are acceptable because they approach the absolute rather than grading it. The same objection defeats uniquest, which compounds the error by inventing a superlative form.

Answer: B

It should read little.

Attempt here is uncountable - real attempt at planning - so it takes little, not few. Little means hardly any; a little would mean some, which reverses the sense.

Answer: B

It should read stood on ends.

Hair stands on end is the idiom, from the hair rising at fright. The preposition is on; off, at and to are not used with it.

Answer: A

It should read the long and short of it.

The long and short of it means the sum of the matter, and both words are held together by and. With or the phrase asks the reader to choose, which is not the sense.

Answer: C

It should read why you did not speak.

The clause after tell me is a noun clause, not a question, so it takes statement word order with no inversion. Did already carries the tense, so speak stays in the base form.

Answer: E

No correction is required.

Curry favour is the fixed idiom for seeking favour by flattery. It has nothing to do with the spice: it comes from currying a horse named Fauvel in a medieval French poem, and the name became favour in English.

Answer: D

Correct answer: to me

Senior takes the preposition to, not than: he is senior to me. The word comes from a Latin comparative - senior already means older - and words of that origin are followed by to rather than by the English comparative conjunction than. The family is small enough to memorise: senior to, junior to, superior to, inferior to, prior to, anterior to, posterior to and preferable to. Than mine compounds the error by changing the pronoun as well: mine is possessive and would compare his seniority with a thing of mine rather than with me. A useful check is that these words are all followed by a person or thing being compared, in the objective case - senior to me, preferable to that one - never by a clause.

Answer: E

No correction is required.

Had I realised is the inverted form of if I had realised, and the main clause correctly takes would not have carried. Every alternative either doubles the auxiliary or puts would into the if-clause.

Answer: E

No correction is required.

As healthy as, if not healthier than, is the complete double comparison - the first as ... as is closed before the parenthesis, and than follows healthier. Dropping either half leaves the sentence unbalanced.

Answer: C

Correct answer: has not yet reached

A collective noun takes a singular verb when the group acts as one body, and reaching a single decision is exactly that. So the committee has not yet reached a decision. A plural verb becomes correct only when the members are acting individually, and the sentence usually signals it: the committee were divided in their opinions. The test is whether one act or several are described. The tense is otherwise right. The present perfect is used for something that has not happened up to now and remains open, and yet is its natural partner - which is why did not reach yet fails, mixing a simple past with a word that belongs to the perfect. The position of yet is flexible: both has not yet reached and has not reached yet are acceptable. Only the verb needs correcting. The same treatment applies to jury, team, government, family and staff.