Choosing the Correct Sentence
These questions can be related to the sentence correction or error finding questions in a way, but they are framed in a different manner. In these questions, a sentence is written in four different ways, and we have to pick the most appropriate sentence out of these four. It might happen that nothing may be underlined here (it is not necessary), so the student needs to read the directions carefully.
How to Solve Choosing the Correct Sentence
- First of all, read all the four statements to know the context and subject of these statements, and the information it is trying to convey.
- Even without knowing what the actual statement would be like, while reading the options, you can eliminate the ones which certainly seem to have a grammatical error.
- After reading all the statements and understanding what is being conveyed through the sentence, frame the grammatically correct and concise sentence in your mind. Re-reading the options and finding the answer just by elimination could eat up your time.
- These sentences are sometimes quite long, and are designed to confuse the students as to how they differ and what the right sentence should be like. So, you need to focus hard on each of the sentence.
- Sometimes, the choice between two options could hinge on one word. In this situation, you would have to rely on the fact that you have understood the context well and also know the usage of the word.
Tips
- Improper sentence construction is often the error in these questions, so make sure you know how to construct a sentence.
- Find out the subject and verb of the sentence. This will help you to spot the correct sentence.
- See if adverbs and adjectives are used appropriately.
- Knowing the verb tense might not be easy here. The problem is that you do not have any base sentence(s) that can help you ascertain the proper tense form. You are on your own here.
- Redundancy is another common error in these sentences. Keep in mind though that a redundant sentence is not always the wrong one. Again it is your own discretion that you should base your answer on. Most importantly, the sentence should make sense grammatically as well as logically.
Common Mistakes
- Marking an option because of a gut feeling: Always use a grammatical rule to select or rule out a sentence.
- Comparing the options: This is one of those types of questions which if done by elimination, could use up more than the required time.
- Logical sense: Sometimes students only concentrate on finding the sentence which is grammatically error-free, but forget that a sentence has to be logically correct too.
Examples of Choosing the Correct Sentence
Directions for Examples: In each of the questions below, four different ways of writing a sentence are indicated. Choose the best way of writing the sentence.
Example 1.
A. The main problem with the notion of price discrimination is that it is not always a bad thing, but that it is the monopolist who has the power to decide who is charged what price.
B. The main problem with the notion of price discrimination is not that it is always a bad thing, it is the monopolist who has the power to decide who is charged what price.
C. The main problem with the notion of price discrimination is not that it is always a bad thing, but that it is the monopolist who has the power to decide who is charged what price.
D. The main problem with the notion of price discrimination is not it is always a bad thing, but that it is the monopolist who has the power to decide who is charged what price.
Answer: (c)
Explanation: Option (c) is right, as it is grammatically correct and makes logical sense.
Option (a) is incorrect, because it is logically incorrect: ‘the main problem is not that it is always a bad thing’. This opens up the window that sometimes, price discrimination is not a bad thing.
Option (b) is wrong, because the second clause of the sentence, which comes after the comma has ambiguity. It does not have a ‘that’; that is used to single out or point to something spoken by the speaker. The given statement does not make clear what the main problem is.
Option (d) is incorrect, because of a similar reason to the previous option. In the part of the sentence ‘notion of price discrimination is not it is always a bad thing’ ‘that’ should come after ‘not’ to make the sentence more clear.
Example 2.
A. A symbiotic relationship develops among the contractors, bureaucracy and the politicians, and by a large number of devices costs are artificially escalated and black money is generated by underhand deals.
B. A symbiotic relationship develops among contractors, bureaucracy and politicians, and costs are artificially escalated with a large number of devices and black money is generated through underhand deals.
C. A symbiotic relationship develops among contractors, bureaucracy and the politicians, and by a large number of devices costs are artificially escalated and black money is generated on underhand deals.
D. A symbiotic relationship develops among the contractors, bureaucracy and politicians, and by large number of devices costs are artificially escalated and black money is generated by underhand deals.
Answer: (b); The most important distinction here is the incorrect positioning of the phrase: ‘by large number of devices’. It should not be placed after the comma after politicians. This is so, because otherwise the flow of the sentence is lost.
Example 3.
A. The distinctive feature of tariffs and export subsidies is that they create difference of prices at which goods are traded on the world market and their price within a local market.
B. The distinctive feature of tariffs and export subsidies is that they create a difference of prices at which goods are traded with the world market and their prices in the local market.
C. The distinctive feature of tariffs and export subsidies is that they create a difference between prices at which goods are traded on the world market and their prices within a local market.
D. The distinctive feature of tariffs and export subsidies is that they create a difference across prices at which goods are traded with the world market and their prices within a local market.
Answer: (c); The use of ‘difference … between’ is the whole distinguishing point here.
Example 4.
A. Any action of government to reduce the systemic risk inherent in financial markets will also reduce the risks that private operators perceive and thereby encourage excessive hedging.
B. Any action by government to reduce the systemic risk inherent in financial markets will also reduce the risks that private operators perceive and thereby encourage excessive gambling.
C. Any action by government to reduce the systemic risk inherent due to financial markets will also reduce the risks that private operators perceive and thereby encourages excessive hedging.
D. Any action of government to reduce the systemic risk inherent in financial markets will also reduce the risks that private operators perceive and thereby encourages excessive gambling.
Answer (b); This one is easy, because people would gamble more when there is reduced risk and hence even if you don’t know the meaning of hedging (any technique designed to reduce or eliminate financial risk; for example, taking two positions that will offset each other if prices change) you can reduce the answer to either option (b) or (d). Once you read them, you can quickly negate option (d) for a subject-verb disagreement.
Example 5.
A. Creativity in any field is regarded not only as valuable for itself but also as a service to the nation.
B. Creativity in any field is not regarded only as valuable on its own, but also as a service to the nation.
C. Creativity, in any field, is not only regarded as valuable, but also as a service to the nation.
D. Creativity in any field is regarded not only as valuable in itself but also as a service to the nation.
Answer: (c); Option (c) is concise and correct.
Option (a) makes creativity important for itself, which is not the intended meaning. Options (b) and (d) are awkward and incorrectly worded.
Example 6.
A. If precision of thought had facilitated precision of behaviour, and if reflection had preceded action, it would be ideal for humans.
B. It would be ideal for humans if reflection preceded action and precision of thought facilitated precision of behaviour.
C. It would be ideal for humans if precedence of reflection was followed by action and precision of thought, by precise behaviour.
D. It would have been ideal for humans, if precise action and behaviour preceded precise reflection.
Answer: (b)
Option (a) is awkward and incorrectly worded.
Option (d) is incorrect because the verb tense used here makes it look like humans are no more or the situation being talked about was in the past. This isn’t true and hence this option can be negated.
Option (c) changes the meaning of the sentence and makes it incorrect.
Example 7.
A. We are forced to fall back on fatalism as an explanation of irrational events.
B. We are forced to falling back on the fatalism as an explanation of irrational events.
C. We are forced to fall back on fatalism as explanations of irrational events.
D. We are forced to fall back to fatalism as an explanation of irrational events.
Answer (a); Fatalism is a philosophical doctrine according to which all the events are predetermined, i.e. everything that happens was bound to happen, and what will happen, will happen and humans are powerless to change that. The statement means that when there is an irrational event or unusual event, then the only explanation we have of it, is fatalism. The correct idiom is ‘fall back on’ which negates option (d).
Option (c) is wrong also because ‘explanation’ is a countable noun, hence it needs a determiner, and also, ‘fatalism’ is a singular noun, not two or more, hence options (c) and (b) can be ruled out; the correct form is ‘an explanation’.
Example 8.
A. From the sixteenth century onwards, people started feeling disdainful and self-conscious about their body and its products that led to a heightened focus on emotional and bodily regulations.
B. The heightened focus on controlling the body and emotions comes from disdain and self-consciousness about the body and its products, found in the sixteenth century.
C. From the sixteenth century onwards, a growing disdain for and self-consciousness about the body and its products took hold, leading to a heightened focus on emotional and bodily regulation.
D. The heightened focus on emotional and bodily regulations started from the sixteenth century onwards, when people felt disdain and self-consciousness about the body and its products.
Answer (c); Option (c) is the best because it captures the essence of the sentence correctly. Other options make the least sense.
Example 9.
A. The running of large businesses consist of getting somebody to make something that somebody else sold to somebody else for more than its cost.
B. The running of a large business consists of getting somebody to make something that somebody else will sell to somebody else for more than it costs.
C. The running of a large business consists of getting somebody to sell something that somebody else made for more than it cost.
D. The running of large businesses consist of getting somebody to make something else that somebody else will sell to somebody else for more than it costs.
Answer (b); It will be noted that ‘running of something’ would always take ‘consists’ and not ‘consist’. Again, the subject-verb agreement case leads to the negation of a few options {(a) and (d)}. Option (c) is also incorrect because how can someone make something for less than what it costs?
Example 10.
(a) He made a blunder mistake.
(b) I have learnt this lesson word by word.
(c) She does not know swimming.
(d) He got his daughter married.
Answer: (d)
Option (a) is incorrect because blunder itself refers to a mistake, so the word ‘mistake’ makes the given sentence redundant.
Option (b) is wrong, because the idiom ‘word by word’ means one word at a time, and this does not make sense in the given sentence.
Option (c) is not right because it should be ‘she does not know how to swim’.
Example 11.
(a) The average male investor expects to see all his investment stocks moving up, and they are often disappointed.
(b) The people in my country are smarter than in other countries.
(c) The number of failures of product in final quality inspection are increasing every year.
(d) Before restructuring a firm, the CEO must consider the employees.
Answer: (d)
Option (a) has two grammatical errors: pronoun and verb inconsistency with the word “they are”. The correction would be “he is”. Another error in the given sentence is that there both gerund and infinitive are used, either one of it must be used and thereby, show consistency; correction would be to replace moving up with to move up.
Option (b) has a comparison error. It is comparing people in a country with something not specific in other countries. The correction would be: “are smarter than those in other countries.”
Option (c) has a subject-verb disagreement. The correction would have ‘products’.
Example 12.
(a) Each of the girls living in the orphanage had been ill-treated by her family before they were abandoned.
(b) Each of the girls living in the orphanage were ill-treated by their family before they were abandoned.
(c) Each of the girls living in the orphanage had been ill-treated by her family before she was abandoned.
(d) Each of the girls living in the orphanage was ill-treated by her family before she had been abandoned.
Answer: (c)
Option (a) is incorrect because of the pronoun they used in the sentence leading to the pronoun-antecedent error. ‘Each’ refers to a singular noun, so the pronoun should be ‘her’. It also has a wrong verb ‘were’. It should be ‘was’ because of the singular noun.
Option (b) is wrong, because of two errors. First is the pronoun-antecedent error with ‘they’ and ‘their’, and second is the error with the verb tense. The given sentence refers to two past events, in such a way that one continuous event (illtreated) occurred before another, so the correct tense is the past perfect progressive tense.
Option (c) uses this tense correctly.
Option (d) is wrong, because it uses the wrong verb tense.
Example 13.
(a) It was thought that freedom and prosperity would spread gradually throughout the world through an orderly process, and it was hoped that tyranny and injustice would continually diminish.
(b) It was gradually thought that throughout the world, freedom and prosperity would spread through an orderly process, and it was hoped that tyranny and injustice would continually diminish.
(c) Through an orderly process, it was thought that freedom and prosperity would spread gradually throughout the world, and it was hoped that tyranny and injustice would continually diminish.
(d) It was thought, through an orderly process that freedom and prosperity would spread gradually throughout the world and it was hoped that tyranny and injustice would continually diminish.
Answer: (a)
Before picking the right option, let us understand the meaning of gradually and orderly: gradually means in a gradual manner, or bit-by-bit, whereas orderly means methodically arranged, or organized.
Option (a) has used these words appropriately.
Option (b) is wrong because ‘gradually thought’ makes no sense.
Options (c) and (d) are wrong because they sound ambiguous: it seems as though the thought came through a gradual process, which of course is not what is being conveyed.
Example 14.
(a) Each of the six boys in the class has finished their task.
(b) One must finish his task in time.
(c) Either Ram or Shyam will give their book.
(d) Each of the girls must carry their own bag.
Answer (b); Option (b) is correct because ‘in time’ means ‘without being tardy’.
Option (a) is incorrect because of the improper pairing of the noun “Each of the six boys” with the pronoun “their”. Here a singular noun is being paired with a plural pronoun.
Option (c) and option (d) also make the same grammatical mistake as does option (a).