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.

According to the police reports, some unidentified persons broke in the house last night and stole the jewellery, damaged the paintings and electronics and kill the pet.

  1. some unidentified persons broke in the house last night and stole the jewellery, damaged the paintings and electronics and kill the pet.

  2. some unidentified persons broken in the house last night and stole the jewellery, damaged the paintings and electronics and killed the pet.

  3. some unidentified persons broke in the house last night and stole the jewellery, damaged the paintings and electronics, and killed the pet.

  4. some unidentified persons broke in the house last night and stole the jewellery, damaged the paintings and electronics and killed the pet.

Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
C Correct answer
Explanation

Option (3) is grammatically the most correct option. (1) (2) and (5) are incorrect because of wrong parallel construction (correct is 'broke…stole…damaged…killed'). (4) is incorrect because of a punctuation error. Correct usage is '…the paintings and electronics, and killed the pet'.