Choose the Correct - Incorrect Sentence Questions and Answers

Answer: A

Correct answer: It is the most ideal place.

Ideal is an absolute adjective: something either is ideal or it is not, so it admits no degrees. Most, more and very cannot be attached to it, any more than to unique or perfect.

The other three are sound:

• The news is too good to be true - news is singular.
• These flowers smell sweet - after a verb of sense an adjective is correct.
• Your watch is better than mine - correct.

Answer: B

Correct answer: Hoping to hear from you, I remain yours sincerely.

The participial phrase looks forward to a single future event, so the plain infinitive to hear is right, and the closing formula is fixed as yours sincerely.

Why the others fail:

• Hoping to be hearing from you - the continuous suggests a stretch of hearing, which is not meant.
• Hoping to have heard from you - the perfect infinitive puts the hearing before the hoping.
• Sincerely I remain yours… - the set phrase is broken up.

Answer: A

Correct answer: It is far too hard an essay for me to attempt.

Far intensifies too and must stand immediately before it. The rest follows the fixed pattern too + adjective + a/an + noun + for + person + to + verb.

Why the others fail:

• too far hard - far now modifies hard, which is not English.
• Too far it is an essay hard for me… - the word order is broken throughout.
• for me to far attempt - far is stranded inside the infinitive.

Answer: C

Correct answer: He blew out his brains with a gun, after bidding his wife goodbye.

With a gun names the instrument of blew out, so it belongs immediately after the object of that verb. The sentence then reads in the order of events: the farewell, then the act.

Why the others fail:

• He blew out with a gun his brains - the instrument is wedged between verb and object.
• after bidding his wife goodbye with a gun - this makes the gun the means of saying goodbye.
• With a gun, he blew out his brains - grammatical, but fronting the instrument gives it an emphasis the sentence does not want, and the standard order keeps it with the verb.

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.