Choose the Correct - Incorrect Sentence Questions and Answers

Answer: A

Correct answer: Nobody will want to play in his team if he does not treat people kindly.

Cause and effect are the right way round: unkind treatment is the condition, unwillingness to play the consequence. The if clause is in the present, the main clause in the future.

Why the others fail:

• nobody will play to want his team - the infinitive and its verb have swapped places.
• Nobody will treat people kindly if he does not want to play… - the condition and consequence are reversed.
• The last option scrambles the verbs so that kindly attaches to playing rather than to treating.

Answer: B

Correct answer: Travelling from Karjat to Khandala, one finds the line most beautifully laid.

The participial phrase and the main clause share the same subject, one, so the modifier is properly attached.

Why the others fail:

• As one travels… he finds… - the pronoun changes from one to he in mid-sentence.
• would find makes a plain observation conditional for no reason.
• The last option repeats the one… he inconsistency.

Answer: A

Correct answer: Let me put my sign here.

A sign is a mark or a notice; what one writes at the foot of a document is a signature. Let me put my signature here, or simply let me sign here.

The other three are sound:

• These cattle are mine - cattle is plural.
• He examined the book closely - correct.
• He has no knowledge of and no interest in music - each noun keeps its own preposition.

Answer: D

Correct answer: He challenged me for a duel.

One is challenged to a contest, not for it: he challenged me to a duel.

The other three are sound:

• She had finished her work when I met her - the past perfect for the earlier of two past events.
• Do you believe in God? - believe in for faith in something's existence.
• He cut his hand with a knife - correct.

Answer: C

Correct answer: We got out of the swimming pool and dried us.

When the subject and the object are the same people, the object must be a reflexive pronoun: we… dried ourselves.

The other three are sound:

• It is time you went to bed - it is time is followed by the past subjunctive.
• There is no end to troubles - correct.
• He gloried in his victory - glory in is the right form.

Answer: A

Correct answer: He is employed with a factory.

One is employed in a factory, or at or by a firm. Employed with is not idiomatic.

The other three are sound:

• Kashmir is celebrated for its scenery - celebrated for is correct.
• I am convinced of my error - convinced of a fact.
• His betrayal was fatal to our plans - fatal to is the right pairing.

Answer: A

Correct answer: I have read such a lot about him that I am looking forward to seeing him very much.

The present perfect have read covers reading up to now and fits the present am looking forward. Such… that is correctly paired, and look forward to takes a gerund.

Why the others fail:

• I am reading… that I will be looking forward - the result is pushed into the future, though it is felt now.
• Having read such a lot… that… - the participle leaves such… that without a main clause, and the object of seeing is missing.
• I had read… that I am looking forward - a past perfect cannot govern a present result.

Answer: B

Correct answer: It is a pleasure to see an alligator as long as 90 feet basking in the sunshine on a river bank.

As long as 90 feet describes the alligator, so it must sit next to alligator. Wherever else it goes it attaches to the nearest noun and says something absurd - a 90-foot sunshine, a 90-foot river bank.

Why the others fail:

• It is pleasure - the article is missing; the idiom is it is a pleasure. The measure is also stranded at the end, where it modifies river bank.
• Placing the phrase after sunshine makes the sunshine ninety feet long.
• Placing it after basking makes it modify the verb, which is meaningless.

Answer: C

Correct answer: This is one of the best films that has been produced this year.

In one of the + plural noun + that, the relative clause describes the whole group, not the single item. The antecedent of that is films, so the verb must be plural: one of the best films that have been produced.

The other three are sound:

• She is one of the best mothers that have ever lived - the same construction, correctly plural.
• None of these words are now current - none takes a plural verb when it refers to a plural noun.
• Sam, as well as Alex and Jack, likes milk - as well as does not make a subject plural.

Answer: C

Correct answer: The boy regretted that with a plastered leg he had spent a greater part of his vacation in the chair.

With a plastered leg belongs to the spending of the vacation, not to the regretting, so it must stand inside the that clause.

Why the others fail:

• he had spend - the past participle of spend is spent.
• Fronting the phrase makes it modify regretted, as though he regretted while wearing the plaster.
• The boy with a plastered leg regretted… - this turns a temporary condition into a permanent description of the boy, and detaches it from the vacation.