Sentence Improvement Questions and Answers

Answer: D

The correct phrase is 'a flash in the pan'. The idiom means something that is suddenly successful or promising but does not last, and it fits a young film star who has only one popular movie to his credit. The phrase comes from the old flintlock gun, where the powder in the pan flashed without firing the shot. 'A flashing pan' is a mangled version of it, and 'a pan with a flash', 'a flash in the theatre' and 'an actor's flash' are not idioms with this meaning.

Answer: A

The correct phrase is 'the elephant in the room'. The idiom means an obvious and uncomfortable problem that everyone knows about but no one wants to talk about, which suits an issue that none of the members wanted to discuss. 'The elephant from the zoo' is not an idiom, and 'an animal in the zoo', 'an issue like an elephant' and 'the room of the elephant' do not carry the meaning. So option A improves the sentence.

Answer: B

The correct phrase is 'to hold his tongue'. The idiom means to keep quiet or to refrain from speaking, and it fits a chatty man learning to stay silent in front of his girlfriend. 'Hold the big tongue' is not an idiom. 'To control his mouth', 'to reduce his tongue' and 'to grasp the tongue' are not the set expression and, for example, 'reduce his tongue' makes no sense. So the second option is right.

Answer: B

The correct replacement is ‘hit the sack’, an idiom meaning to go to bed. The speaker has to wake up early for a flight and so should go to sleep early.

‘Beat the sack’, ‘book the sack’, ‘pack the sack’ and ‘pack the bed’ are not English idioms for going to bed.

The speaker needs to be up early, so the sensible advice is to go to bed early. ‘Hit the sack’ is informal English for going to bed, and the other three phrases are not idioms with that meaning.

Answer: C

The underlined words 'which us subscribed to' are wrong, since us is an object form that cannot be the subject. The relative clause needs the subject we and a verb form that agrees: 'that we subscribe to' is correct, and it fits 'The TV channel pack that we subscribe to is renewed monthly'. The options 'we are subscribed on' and 'we are subscribed with' use a wrong preposition and a passive verb, and 'No improvement' leaves the error. The answer is option (C).

Answer: A

The sentence is a third conditional, 'If it were not for ... Rakesh would have ...', and the correct verb form for a past event is would have had, followed by the past participle: 'would have had struggled' is the form the key gives, option (A). 'Would have being struggling' is wrong because being cannot follow have in this way, 'would had struggle' and 'would be struggled' have wrong verb forms, and the sentence needs a change, so 'No improvement' is wrong.

Answer: B

The word that can replace 'group' is 'pride'. A group of lions is called a pride. The collective noun is the exact word for the animals in the sentence, so the sentence becomes 'The pride of lions walked majestically through the jungle'.

'Gang' is used for criminals or youths, 'herd' for grazing animals such as cattle or deer, and 'pack' for wolves or dogs. None of these is the term for lions, so the second option is the answer.

Answer: D

The word that can replace the underlined segment 'a scientist who specialises in insects' is 'entomologist'. An entomologist is a scientist who studies insects, which is just what the underlined words describe.

An endocrinologist studies the glands and hormones, an orthopaedic doctor deals with bones and joints (the adjective orthopaedic is also not a noun for a person), and a urologist deals with the urinary system. None of them studies insects, so the fourth option is correct.

Answer: A

The word that can replace the underlined word 'places' is 'worlds'. The expression is 'the best of both worlds', which means getting the advantages of two different things at once. 'Places' is wrong because the fixed idiom uses worlds.

'Choices' and 'dishes' do not form an idiom with 'best of both', and 'No substitution required' is wrong because the sentence as given, with 'places', is not the idiom. The first option is the answer.

Answer: C

The correct option is 'Reena was crying because my mother had scolded her.'

'Though' shows contrast, but being scolded is the reason for crying, not a contrast. 'Because' gives the cause.

'Although' repeats the wrong contrast, 'unless' means 'if not' and 'both ... and' is ungrammatical here.

The error is the use of 'though'. The mother's scolding is the cause of the crying, so the cause word 'because' is required. 'Unless' means 'if not', and 'both my mother and scolded her' is not a clause at all.