Choose the Correct - Incorrect Sentence Questions and Answers

Answer: B

Correct answer: The headmaster testified the boy's ability.

Testify is intransitive in this sense and takes to: the headmaster testified to the boy's ability.

The other three are sound:

• He succumbed to his injuries - succumb to is correct.
• These plants are indigenous to India - indigenous to is correct.
• Mr Ram's statement was tantamount to a confession - tantamount to is correct.

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: C

Correct answer: He reached to his destination.

Reach, in the sense of arriving at a place, is transitive and takes no preposition: he reached his destination.

The other three are sound:

• He accompanied me to the park - accompany takes a direct object, with to marking the destination.
• Never have I heard of such a thing - correct inversion after a negative opening.
• He need not come to me - need as a modal takes the bare infinitive.

Answer: A

Correct answer: I prefer to read than to write.

Prefer is followed by to, not than, and the two things compared must take the same form: I prefer reading to writing. With infinitives the idiom is I would rather read than write.

The other three are sound:

• Each student must bring his pen and paper - each is singular.
• Several years have passed since I saw you - the past simple after since is correct.
• I have purchased a pair of socks - correct.

Answer: C

Correct answer: The climate of Ranchi is better than Patna.

As written, a climate is being compared with a city. The comparison needs that of to supply the missing noun: the climate of Ranchi is better than that of Patna.

The other three are sound:

• The more I thought of it, the less I liked it - a correct double comparative.
• The teacher was angry with him - one is angry with a person.
• One should take care of one's health - one is kept throughout.

Answer: D

Correct answer: He came in very quickly so that he might avoid waking his father.

So that introduces the purpose, and might is the correct past-referring modal after a past main verb.

Why the others fail:

• He came in too quickly to avoid waking his father - too… to means the result was not achieved, which reverses the sense.
• He entered in quickly - enter is transitive and takes no in.
• Having not to wake his father - not an English construction; the negative participle would be not having, and even then it would not express purpose.

Answer: C

Correct answer: The harassed wife shot herself with a gun after bidding her husband the last goodbye

With a gun is the instrument of shot and belongs beside it; the farewell then follows in its own phrase.

Why the others fail:

• Putting with a gun at the end makes the goodbye something said with a gun.
• The harassed wife with a gun shot herself - this describes the wife rather than the shooting.
• With a gun the harassed wife shot herself - grammatical, but the fronted instrument takes an emphasis the sentence does not call for.

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.

Answer: C

Correct answer: The receptionist should answer courteously the questions of all the callers.

Should states what is proper for the receptionist to do, which is what a rule of conduct expresses; of all the callers stays next to questions, the noun it belongs to.

Why the others fail:

• the questions what are asked by the callers - what cannot serve as a relative pronoun here; it would have to be that or which.
• answer the questions courteously of all the callers - the adverb splits questions from of all the callers.
• The receptionist courteously should answer… - the adverb is placed before the modal, which is not the natural position.

Answer: C

Correct answer: With a frown on his face, the teacher asked the student to leave the room.

With a frown on his face describes the teacher, and fronting it puts it immediately before the noun it modifies.

Why the others fail:

• The teacher asked the student with a frown on his face - the frown now belongs to the student.
• The teacher asked with a frown on his face the student… - the phrase splits the verb from its object.
• …to leave the room with a frown on his face - this makes the frown the manner of leaving.