Choose the Correct - Incorrect Sentence Questions and Answers

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.

Answer: B

It should read agonises me most.

What is the subject of the clause, so the verb follows directly without the auxiliary does - the same reason one writes what happened, not what did happen, in a statement. Most then modifies the verb.

Answer: A

Correct answer: I shall inform them this.

Inform takes a person as its object and the matter after of or about: I shall inform them of this. It cannot take two objects as tell can.

The other three are sound:

• He boarded the train - board is transitive and needs no preposition.
• A bunch of keys has been lost - the subject is bunch, so the verb is singular.
• Ask him why he wastes his time - correct indirect question order.

Answer: D

Correct answer: Why did you give false witness ?

The fixed expression is bear false witness. Give collocates with evidence, not with witness.

The other three are sound:

• If it had not been for your folly, you could have been a partner - a correct third conditional.
• The storm having ceased, the sun came out - a correct absolute construction.
• He stipulated for immediate supply of the articles - stipulate for is correct.

Answer: B

Correct answer: His trousers is very dirty.

Trousers is one of the garment nouns that exist only in the plural - like scissors and spectacles - so it takes a plural verb: his trousers are very dirty.

The other three are sound:

• There are not any books on the table - correct.
• The roads of Delhi are wider than those of Calcutta - those keeps the comparison between like things.
• I walk faster than you - correct.

Answer: C

Correct answer: Owing to lack of fuel, many works must close if the strike lasts over the weekend.

Owing to lack of fuel is the reason and is placed at the front, where it governs the whole sentence; the condition then follows the clause it qualifies.

Why the others fail:

• The first option separates owing to lack of fuel from what it explains, and misspells strike.
• The second wedges the reason between the condition and its result.
• Having the strike lasting to the weekend - a participle with no subject, and lasting to is not idiomatic.