Choose the Correct - Incorrect Sentence Questions and Answers

Answer: C

The correct sentence is I paid my respects to him.

The idiom is 'pay one's respects to someone', always with the plural respects, meaning to visit or greet someone as a mark of regard.

The others contain errors. Prevent takes 'from' plus a gerund, so it should be 'Who can prevent me from getting married ?'. Furniture is an uncountable noun with no plural, so 'full of furniture'. And one does injustice to someone, not makes it: 'He did me an injustice' or 'He did injustice to me'.

Answer: A

The correct sentence is My services are at your disposal.

'At your disposal' means available for you to use as you wish, and 'my services are at your disposal' is the standard formal offer of help.

The others contain errors. 'Behind time' (late) takes no article, so 'The train is behind time'; 'behind the times' means old-fashioned. A person executed by hanging is hanged; hung is used for things such as pictures. And 'hard pressed for time' is the idiom, since hardly means 'scarcely', which reverses the sense.

Answer: B

The incorrect sentence is Answer by return post.

The fixed phrase is 'by return of post', meaning by the next post back. Dropping of breaks the idiom, so the sentence should read 'Answer by return of post'.

The other three are correct. 'Do it by any means' uses the idiom 'by any means', in any way possible. 'I for one do not believe it' uses 'for one' to mean 'I, at least'. 'He built castles in the air' is the standard idiom for daydreaming about plans that will never come true.

Answer: A

The incorrect sentence is He is confined in bed by fever.

The idiom is 'confined to bed', and the illness is introduced with with: 'He is confined to bed with fever.' Both prepositions in the given sentence are wrong.

The other three are correct. 'Nothing to say to the contrary' is the standard phrase for having no objection. 'Either you will obey me or I will punish you' places either and or before two parallel clauses, as the rule requires. 'I have no pen to write with' correctly keeps the preposition at the end, since one writes with a pen.

Answer: B

The key marks Repeat again what you have said. as the incorrect sentence.

Repeat already means 'say again', so 'repeat again' is redundant, the textbook example of tautology. The sentence should be 'Repeat what you have said.'

'He wrote me a letter' is correct, with me as the indirect object. Sentence (a) is correct apart from the misprint 'konow' for 'know' in the booklet. Sentence (c) is the closer call: present-day usage prefers 'the reason for my silence', though 'the reason of' is found in older English, so the paper treats the redundancy of 'repeat again' as the error to find.

Answer: A

The incorrect sentence is Anil told to me about it.

The verb tell takes the person as a direct object, with no preposition: Anil told me about it. It is say that takes 'to' before the person (Anil said to me ...).

The others are correct. 'Was made to do' is the right passive of 'make someone do', where the 'to' returns in the passive. 'Nothing else but pride' is an accepted idiom, and 'has been raining since morning' correctly uses the present perfect continuous with 'since'.

Answer: C

The incorrect sentence is Being a very hot today, I remained in my tent.

Two things are wrong. 'Hot' is an adjective here and cannot take the article 'a'. More importantly, the participle 'being' has no subject of its own, so it attaches itself to 'I', which makes it say that I was very hot today. The correct form is the absolute construction It being very hot today, I remained in my tent.

The others are correct: 'asked Ram to go with him', the reported 'said that he would go with us', and 'One should keep one's promise', where 'one' is correctly followed by 'one's'.

Answer: B

The incorrect sentence is This admits no excuse.

In the sense 'allow' or 'leave room for', admit is followed by of: This admits of no excuse. Without 'of', admit means 'let in' or 'confess', which does not fit.

The sentence in (a) is the direct speech He said, "My God! I am ruined."; the booklet prints 'ain' for 'am' and drops the closing quotation mark, but the sentence it intends is correct. Sentence (c) correctly uses 'would' after the past tense 'asked'. Since (b) is wrong, 'None of these' is also wrong.

Answer: A

The incorrect sentence is He sailed for New York on Monday, arriving there on Sunday.

A present participle such as 'arriving' describes an action happening at the same time as the main verb. Sailing on Monday and arriving on Sunday are separate actions six days apart, so they must be joined by a finite verb: He sailed for New York on Monday and arrived there on Sunday.

The others are correct: the reported question 'where he had been all the afternoon', the exclamation 'What a pity you did not come!', and 'Everybody was satisfied with his work', where 'everybody' correctly takes a singular verb and pronoun.

Answer: C

The incorrect sentence is I saw a bad dream last night.

In English one has or dreams a dream; one does not 'see' it. The correct sentence is I had a bad dream last night. 'Saw a dream' is a common error carried over from Indian languages.

The others are correct. 'Enjoys swimming' uses the gerund that 'enjoy' requires, 'I wrote that I would visit him next day' correctly shifts 'will' to 'would' in reported speech, and 'I was requested to attend the meeting' is a correct passive.