Sentence Improvement Questions and Answers

Answer: A

The correct form is did the bell ring than: No sooner did the bell ring than the students rushed out.

No sooner is always followed by than, never by when. And because No sooner is a negative adverbial at the front of the clause, it needs inversion: did the bell ring, not the bell rang. The original gets the inversion right but uses when.

The bell rang when fails on both counts. The bell rang than fixes the conjunction but drops the required inversion. The sentence as printed cannot be left unchanged, so No improvement is wrong.

Answer: A

The correct verb is is: The minister, along with his private secretaries, is expected to arrive shortly.

Phrases such as along with, together with, as well as and accompanied by do not join subjects the way and does. The verb agrees with the first noun, the minister, which is singular, so it takes is.

Are and were are plural and agree with the secretaries by mistake; were also shifts the tense. Have been is again plural and changes the meaning. So the sentence does need an improvement.

Answer: C

It should read does.

The main verb is present - the child does whatever - so the subordinate clause must be present too. Whatever his father does is the habitual action being copied; was done is passive and past, and fits neither.

Answer: A

It should read you don't need to come unless you want to.

Need not is the modal, and need to is the ordinary verb. Both are correct English, but the modal form takes no to before come, so need not come is right as it stands - and the option offered restates the same sense with the ordinary verb, which the question treats as the improvement.

Answer: A

It should read initials.

Men referred to by two or three letters - J.F.K., M.K.G. - are known by their initials, not their short names. A short name would be a nickname or a shortened form, which is a different thing.

Answer: D

It should read to whom I sold.

Whom is the object form, and after a preposition the object form is required - to whom, not to who. The tense must stay past, since the main verb was is past.

Answer: E

No correction is required.

They were all shocked at his failure is correct: all follows the auxiliary were, and shocked at is the usual collocation. The alternatives move all to the wrong side of the verb or change the preposition unnecessarily.

Answer: B

It should read speaks for itself.

To speak for itself is the fixed idiom - the evidence needs no explanation from me. Speaking about or to itself would mean something quite different, and the present simple is right for a general truth.

Answer: E

No correction is required.

Too important for tolerating is unusual but defensible: for takes the gerund. The commoner construction would be too important to tolerate, but the sentence as written is not ungrammatical.

Answer: E

No correction is required.

The comparison is between one population and another, so that of any other town supplies the second term correctly. Greater than any other town would compare a population with a town, which is the error the sentence has already avoided.