Passage Correction Questions and Answers

Answer: A

Correct answer: affect

Affect is the verb, meaning to influence or have an impact on. Effect is normally the noun, meaning the result. So a policy affects employees and has an effect on them. The mnemonic is that Affect is the Action and Effect is the End result. There is a complication worth knowing, since examiners use it: effect can also be a verb, meaning to bring about or accomplish - the committee effected a change in policy means it brought the change about, which is quite different from affected a change. And affect can be a noun in psychology, meaning observable emotion. But those senses are rare, and the ordinary division holds. The remaining options fail on construction as well as on meaning: affects cannot follow will, and effect on and have effect would need the article and a different sentence shape.

Answer: C

It should read asking him to rush to his village.

Rush in this sense is intransitive and needs to before a destination - rush to the village. Asking is right as it stands, since the telegram is doing the asking.

Answer: D

It should read to make both ends meet.

Make both ends meet is a fixed idiom, and make here takes the bare infinitive: make the ends meet, not make them to meet. The image is of the two ends of a household account being brought together.

Answer: D

It should read had you told.

Inverting had is the way to form a third conditional without if - had you told me is exactly if you had told me. Been cannot stand between had and told, and if you would have is never correct in the if-clause.

Answer: A

It should read how the thief made.

The clause after we don't know is a noun clause, not a question, so it takes statement word order with no auxiliary: how the thief made his escape. Did also cannot stand beside the past tense made.

Answer: C

No correction is required.

His yesterday's performance is acceptable - the possessive attaches to yesterday, and performance is singular, so was is right. Each alternative either drops the possessive or puts a plural verb with a singular noun.

Answer: A

It should read had taken nor will ever take.

He never has take is impossible: the first verb needs its own participle. With never in the first clause the second must be joined by nor, and each verb needs the form its auxiliary requires.

Answer: A

Correct answer: doesn’t it make

This is a question tag, and a tag copies the tense and number of the main verb while reversing its polarity. The statement behind it is it makes sense - present simple, third person singular - so the negative tag is doesn’t it make, with the bare infinitive after the auxiliary.

Isn’t it makes is doubly wrong: it borrows the wrong auxiliary (be instead of do) and then leaves makes inflected after it.

Answer: D

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.

Answer: A

It should read get the most severe.

Severe is an adjective describing punishment, so its superlative is the most severe. Mostly means for the greater part and cannot form a superlative at all.