Multiple choice

Directions: This question presents a sentence, all or part of which is underlined. Beneath the sentence you will find five ways of phrasing the underlined part. The first of these repeats the original; the other four are different. If you think the original is best, choose the first answer; otherwise choose one of the others.

They, the girl and the boy who had found her, were very happy, and told each other over and over again what a beautiful world it was, and how wonderful it was that they should have found each other.

  1. They, the girl and the boy who had found her, were very happy, and told each other over and over again what a beautiful world it was,

  2. They, the girl and the boy who had found her, was very happy, and told each other over and over again what a beautiful world it was,

  3. They, the girl and the boy who had found her, were very happy, and told each other repeatedly what a beautiful world it was,

  4. They, the girl and the boy who had found her, was very happy, and told each other over and over again what a beautiful world it is,

  5. They, the girl and the boy who had found her, were very happy, and told each other over and over again that it was a beautiful world,
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
A Correct answer
Explanation

Justification for (1): The sentence is correct as given 

Explanation for (2): This option has a subject-verb agreement error. 'The girl and the boy who had found her' is an appositive of the pronoun 'they' and does not affect the verb. The correct verb is 'were', which agrees with 'they'. 

Explanation for (3): This option makes an unnecessary change in idiom. 'Over and over again' is used for emphasis.  Changing this to 'repeatedly' subtly changes the meaning of the sentence. 
Explanation for (4): This option introduces a tense error by changing 'beautiful world it was' to beautiful world it is'.  The present tense here is inconsistent with the simple past in the rest of the sentence.  Explanation for (5): This option makes unwarranted changes and renders the sentence incorrect.

Keep practicing — related questions