Choose the Correct - Incorrect Sentence Questions and Answers

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.

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.