Fill in the Blanks Questions and Answers

Answer: A

The correct conjunction is and: God made the country and man made the town.

The sentence joins two balanced statements of equal weight, so it needs the coordinating conjunction and, which adds one idea to the other. The line is William Cowper's well-known contrast between the countryside and the town.

Or would offer them as alternatives, which makes no sense here. Under and over are prepositions, not conjunctions, and cannot join two clauses.

Answer: B

The best match is (i) wasn't (ii) Even (iii) was (iv) Only.

Prof. P 'wasn't merely a man who narrated funny stories': he was more than a joke-teller. 'Even in his blackest moments he was capable of self-deprecating humor' supports that, since 'even' marks the extreme case of his humour.

Prof. Q 'was a man who hardly narrated funny stories'. 'Only in his blackest moments was he able to find humor' fits a man who rarely joked; 'only' at the start of the clause also explains the inverted word order 'was he able'.

Swapping 'Only' and 'Even' breaks both sentences: 'Only in his blackest moments he was capable ...' would need inversion, and 'Even ... was he able' is ungrammatical. 'Was merely' for P contradicts the praise that follows.

Answer: C

The correct completion is couldn't help laughing: The movie was funny and I couldn't help laughing.

The idiom cannot help (meaning cannot stop oneself from) is followed by a gerund, the -ing form of the verb. The negative is essential to the sense: the film was funny, so the speaker could not stop laughing.

'could help laughing' drops the negative and says the opposite. 'couldn't help laughed' uses a past form where the gerund is required, and 'could helped laughed' puts a past form after the modal could, which must take the base verb.

Answer: C

The sentence reads I would like to have bought a diamond ring.

'Would like to have + past participle' expresses a wish about the past that was not fulfilled: the speaker did not buy the ring and now wishes they had. 'Would like' is the standard polite form for a wish, and the perfect infinitive 'to have bought' carries the past reference.

'Have a liking' is a noun phrase that takes 'for', not an infinitive ('a liking for rings'). 'Should have liked' already puts the wish in the past, so following it with another perfect infinitive doubles the past marking. 'May like' expresses possibility, not a wish.

Answer: C

The sentence reads Food prices have been rising again this month.

'Rise' is intransitive: prices rise by themselves, with no object. The present perfect continuous 'have been rising' describes an increase that began in the past and is still going on, which suits 'again this month'.

'Raise' is transitive and needs an object (shops raise prices), so 'have raised' and 'have been raising' leave the verb without one. 'Have arose' uses the past tense where the past participle is needed; the correct form would be 'have arisen'.

Answer: C

The correct option is One another: He and his four brothers love one another very much.

Traditional grammar uses each other for two persons and one another for more than two. Here there are five brothers, so one another is the expected form.

Each other is the two-person form in that rule, which is why it is the near miss. Some other and all another are not reciprocal pronouns and do not make grammatical sentences here.

Answer: A

The correct word is Lightning: plenty of thunder and lightning.

Lightning is the flash of electricity in the sky during a storm, the natural partner of thunder in the fixed phrase thunder and lightning.

Lightening is the present participle of lighten, meaning making lighter in weight or colour, so it is a common misspelling here. Roaring and thundering describe sound, and thunder has already supplied the sound in the sentence.

Answer: B

The correct option is Can: He can scarcely see in this light.

Scarcely is a negative adverb meaning 'almost not', so the sentence needs a positive verb with it: can scarcely see means he is almost unable to see.

Can't and could not would put a second negative beside scarcely, a double negative that is wrong in standard English. Only leaves the sentence without a verb to govern see.

Answer: D

The correct option is Much: Neelima is much cleverer than Savita.

A comparative adjective such as cleverer is intensified with much, far or a lot: much taller, far better.

More cannot be added because cleverer is already comparative, and more cleverer is a double comparative. Very modifies the positive degree (very clever), not the comparative. Positively does not combine with a comparative in this way.

Answer: A

The correct pair is Lose, get: It is better to keep one's head in the face of danger than lose one's courage and get panicky.

After It is better to ... than, the second part takes the same bare infinitive form as the first: better to keep ... than (to) lose ... and (to) get. The idioms lose one's courage and get panicky fit the sense.

Losing, getting breaks the parallel structure. Quell (suppress) and bemoan (lament) do not fit the meaning, and look out for, dispel being makes no sense in the sentence.