Sentence Improvement Questions and Answers

Answer: C

The correct form is 'No sooner did we arrive'. After 'did' the main verb takes its base form, so 'did we arrived' repeats the past tense and is wrong. 'No sooner did we arrives' adds a third person ending that does not fit 'we'. 'No sooner had we arrive' mixes 'had' with a base verb, which is also wrong. The underlined segment needs correcting, so 'No substitution required' is not right. 'No sooner' is followed by the inverted verb and then 'than', and the sentence 'No sooner did we arrive at the station than we got into an argument' keeps that pattern with a single past marker.

Answer: B

The correct form is 'is burnt'. The sentence states a general truth in the present: toxic chemicals 'is released' (with 'a complex weave' as subject), so the clause with 'When' needs the present form, 'When plastic waste is burnt'. 'Was burnt' is a past tense that clashes with the present. 'Were burnt' and 'are burnt' use plural verbs, but 'plastic waste' is treated as singular here. The same sentence with the corrected clause reads 'When plastic waste is burnt, a complex weave of toxic chemicals is released', in which both verbs are in the present tense.

Answer: C

The correct replacement is Increase in productivity necessarily.

The corrected sentence reads 'Increase in productivity necessarily reflects greater efforts made by the employees.' The subject is the noun phrase increase in productivity, and the adverb necessarily modifies the verb reflects.

The original uses the adjective necessary where an adverb is needed. The first option keeps that error, and the second turns the subject into a separate clause ('is necessary') that leaves 'reflects' without a subject. Since the sentence needs correcting, 'No improvement required' is wrong.

Answer: C

The correctly punctuated version is Even though it was late - almost midnight - she continued reading her book, unable to put it down, knowing that she would regret staying up so late.

Almost midnight is an aside that interrupts the sentence, so it is set off by a matching pair of dashes. The two participial phrases, unable to put it down and knowing that..., are each separated by commas from the main clause.

The first option opens the aside with a comma and closes it with a dash, an unmatched pair. The second adds words that were not in the sentence, when her alarm rang at 6 a.m., so it is not the same sentence. The last uses a colon before almost midnight, which does not introduce an explanation here, and leaves no comma before unable.

Answer: C

It should read have been waiting.

Since the afternoon fixes a starting point, and an action continuing from a point in the past to now takes the present perfect continuous. The present continuous says nothing about when the waiting began.

Answer: A

It should read from mine.

Different takes from in careful British usage. Different than is American and is generally avoided in formal writing; different to is heard in Britain but from is the safest.

Answer: A

It should read chose to have her brain preserved.

The sentence is about a past event, so the verb must be past: chose, not chooses. And she did not preserve the brain herself; she arranged for it to be done, which the causative have ... preserved expresses.

Answer: D

It is final ... conclusion.

A long-awaited conclusion belongs in the final book of a series, and the two words support each other. A plot or a hero can appear in any volume, and a conflict comes at the start rather than the end.

Answer: B

It should read of earlier travellers' first encounters with Lake Manasarovar.

The encounters belong to several travellers, so the apostrophe follows the plural s. Encounter takes with before the thing met, and the word order must put earlier travellers next to what is theirs.

Answer: C

It should read much-needed.

Much-needed is the standard compound adjective for something badly wanted. So-needed and very-needed are not English, and needy describes a person in want.