Choose the Correct - Incorrect Sentence Questions and Answers

Answer: A

Correct answer: Anita, with her lap full of newspapers, was sitting with her husband on the steps of the temple when Bunty and Bitto came up.

With her lap full of newspapers describes Anita, and the pair of commas ties it to her unmistakably.

Why the others fail:

• Placing it after the steps of the temple leaves it hovering between Anita, her husband and the steps.
• The fronted version attaches the phrase to whatever noun follows it, which here is the steps.
• Placing it at the very end makes it describe Bunty and Bitto coming up.

Answer: C

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: B

Correct answer: If you pay heed to the small details, the general plans will surely succeed.

This is a first conditional: a present-tense if clause with a will result. The condition is open, and the result follows if it is met.

Why the others fail:

• If you will pay heed - will does not belong in the if clause.
• would have succeed - the participle is missing its -ed, and the tenses are mixed.
• If you heeded to the small details - heed is transitive and takes no to, and the past tense shifts the sentence to a remote condition.

Answer: B

Correct answer: Laziness is detrimental for success.

Detrimental takes to, not for: laziness is detrimental to success.

The other three are sound:

• Neither you nor I am in a sound position - the verb agrees with the nearer subject, I.
• He begged the favour of my granting him leave - the possessive before a gerund is correct.
• Your action is not in conformity with the law - conformity with is the right pairing.

Answer: D

Correct answer: He came in very quickly so that he might avoid waking his father.

So that introduces the purpose, and might is the correct past-referring modal after a past main verb.

Why the others fail:

• He came in too quickly to avoid waking his father - too… to means the result was not achieved, which reverses the sense.
• He entered in quickly - enter is transitive and takes no in.
• Having not to wake his father - not an English construction; the negative participle would be not having, and even then it would not express purpose.

Answer: C

Correct answer: He is the eldest man of this village.

A superlative is followed by in before a place: the eldest man in this village. Of is used before a group of people (the eldest of the brothers).

The other three are sound:

• Sumit is my elder brother - elder is correct attributively within a family.
• He is two years younger to me - junior/senior to takes to, and this follows that pattern.
• Ravi is five years older than me - correct.

Answer: C

Correct answer: Many a glorious deeds were done.

Many a is always followed by a singular noun and a singular verb, however plural the sense feels. The sentence should read many a glorious deed was done.

The other three are sound:

• Our followers are but a handful - but here means only.
• Neither he nor I was there - with neither… nor the verb agrees with the nearer subject, I.
• Everyone of the boys loves to ride - everyone is singular.

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: C

Correct answer: The receptionist should answer courteously the questions of all the callers.

Should states what is proper for the receptionist to do, which is what a rule of conduct expresses; of all the callers stays next to questions, the noun it belongs to.

Why the others fail:

• the questions what are asked by the callers - what cannot serve as a relative pronoun here; it would have to be that or which.
• answer the questions courteously of all the callers - the adverb splits questions from of all the callers.
• The receptionist courteously should answer… - the adverb is placed before the modal, which is not the natural position.

Answer: A

Correct answer: The proceeds of the charity show are for riot victims.

Proceeds exists only in the plural and takes a plural verb, so are is right.

Why the others fail:

• He asked Robert and I to go - the pronoun is an object, so it must be me. Removing Robert and makes this audible.
• The weather of this place - weather is in a place, not of it.
• Either Albert or his friends has done it - with either… or the verb agrees with the nearer subject, friends, so it should be have.