Choose the Correct - Incorrect Sentence Questions and Answers

Answer: B

Correct answer: Hoping to hear from you, I remain yours sincerely.

The participial phrase looks forward to a single future event, so the plain infinitive to hear is right, and the closing formula is fixed as yours sincerely.

Why the others fail:

• Hoping to be hearing from you - the continuous suggests a stretch of hearing, which is not meant.
• Hoping to have heard from you - the perfect infinitive puts the hearing before the hoping.
• Sincerely I remain yours… - the set phrase is broken up.

Answer: D

Correct answer: Since the report lacked needed information it was of no use to them.

Since gives the cause, lacked is a plain past tense, and was of no use is a correct idiom.

Why the others fail:

• because there was no needed information - needed hangs without a reference.
• it would have not been useful - a conditional where a statement of fact is needed, and the negative is misplaced.
• it was not real useful - real is an adjective being used to modify another adjective; it should be really.

Answer: D

Correct answer: Fortunately in thirty seven bomb-blasts only five lives were lost.

Fortunately is a sentence adverb: it comments on the whole statement, so it belongs at the front, where it cannot be mistaken for a comment on any single part.

Why the others fail:

• Placing it after the blasts leaves it ambiguous between the blasts and the losses.
• only five lives were fortunately lost - this says the losing was fortunate.
• In fortunately thirty seven bomb-blasts - the adverb now modifies the number, which is nonsense.

Answer: A

Correct answer: I have read such a lot about him that I am looking forward to seeing him very much.

The present perfect have read covers reading up to now and fits the present am looking forward. Such… that is correctly paired, and look forward to takes a gerund.

Why the others fail:

• I am reading… that I will be looking forward - the result is pushed into the future, though it is felt now.
• Having read such a lot… that… - the participle leaves such… that without a main clause, and the object of seeing is missing.
• I had read… that I am looking forward - a past perfect cannot govern a present result.

Answer: C

Correct answer: As soon as the holidays begin this beach will become very crowded.

In a clause of time the present tense carries future meaning, so begin is right, and the main clause takes will.

Why the others fail:

• As soon as… than - as soon as takes no correlative.
• Since the holidays being started - no finite verb.
• No sooner did the holidays begin than this beach will become… - a past auxiliary with a future result.

Answer: A

Correct answer: Nobody will want to play in his team if he does not treat people kindly.

Cause and effect are the right way round: unkind treatment is the condition, unwillingness to play the consequence. The if clause is in the present, the main clause in the future.

Why the others fail:

• nobody will play to want his team - the infinitive and its verb have swapped places.
• Nobody will treat people kindly if he does not want to play… - the condition and consequence are reversed.
• The last option scrambles the verbs so that kindly attaches to playing rather than to treating.

Answer: D

Correct answer: Ajay will be working in this office upon completing twenty years by next June.

The main clause has a complete verb, will be working, and upon completing correctly attaches the length of service to the subject.

Why the others fail:

• Ajay will be twenty years working in the office - there is no such construction; a duration needs for.
• Being twenty years completed - a dangling participle with no subject to attach to.
• Till June next year, Ajay will work… for twenty years - till and a completed span of twenty years pull against each other.

Answer: A

Correct answer: Our friends left in an imported car the hill station where they had been staying for quite some time.

In an imported car tells us how they left, so it stays with left, and where they had been staying stays with hill station. Both modifiers touch what they modify.

Why the others fail:

• Putting the car between hill station and where makes it look as though they had been staying in the car.
• Putting the car at the very end does the same thing more strongly.
• Our friends in an imported car left… - this describes the friends rather than the leaving, as though they were friends who live in a car.

Answer: C

Correct answer: He blew out his brains with a gun, after bidding his wife goodbye.

With a gun names the instrument of blew out, so it belongs immediately after the object of that verb. The sentence then reads in the order of events: the farewell, then the act.

Why the others fail:

• He blew out with a gun his brains - the instrument is wedged between verb and object.
• after bidding his wife goodbye with a gun - this makes the gun the means of saying goodbye.
• With a gun, he blew out his brains - grammatical, but fronting the instrument gives it an emphasis the sentence does not want, and the standard order keeps it with the verb.

Answer: D

Correct answer: Each of the candidates was given a separate room.

“Each” is singular and governs the verb, so the correct form is “was given”, while the noun after “of” must be plural: “the candidates”. The remaining options fail on one or other of these two points.