Spotting Errors

What is the error in sentence 5?

Directions for the question:

The following passage is an early draft of an essay. Some parts of the passage need to be rewritten. Read the passage and select the best answer for the question that follows. Keep in mind that some questions are about particular sentences or parts of sentences and ask you to improve sentence structure or word choice. Other questions ask to consider organization and development. In choosing the answer, follow the requirements of standard written English.

(1) Under the present system of mass education by classes so much stress is laid on teaching and so little on active learning. (2) The child is not encouraged to discover his own powers, thus losing intellectual independence and all capacity to judge for himself. (3) The over-taught child is the advertising-believing propaganda–swallowing, demagogue–led man. (4) Such is the man who makes modern democracy the force it is. (5) Moreover, lessons in class leave him mainly unoccupied. (6) He has to be coerced into learning what does not interest him and the information acquired mechanically is rapidly forgotten. (7) Quite naturally, the child, being bored and unoccupied, is also mischievous. (8) A strict external discipline becomes necessary unless there is to be chaos and pandemonium. (9) The child learns to obey, not to control himself. (10) He loses moral as well as intellectual independence. (11) Such are the main defects in the current system of mass education. (12) Many others could be mentioned but there are defects in detail. (13) We need a new system of universal education of the same kind as that proved so successful in the training of detectives and infants, but modified so as to be suitable for older boys and girls. (14) We need a system of individual education.

What is the error in sentence 10?

Directions for the question:

The following passage is an early draft of an essay. Some parts of the passage need to be rewritten. Read the passage and select the best answer for the question that follows. Keep in mind that some questions are about particular sentences or parts of sentences and ask you to improve sentence structure or word choice. Other questions ask to consider organization and development. In choosing the answer, follow the requirements of standard written English.

[1] The whole progress of human civilization beyond its earliest stages has been made possible by the invention of methods of thought. [2] These methods enable us to interpret and forecast the working of nature more successfully than we could if we merely followed the line of least resistance in the use of our minds. [3] These methods, when applied in politics, still represent a difficult and uncertain art rather than a science producing its effects with mechanical accuracy.
[4] When the great thinkers of Greece laid down rules for valid reasoning, they had the needs of politics particularly in their minds. [5] If Plato could visit us now, he would learn that while our artisans proceed by rigorous and confident processes to exact results, our statesmen, like the artisans of ancient Athens, still trust to empirical maxims and personal skill. [6] Why is it, he would ask us, that valid reasoning has proved to be so much more difficult in politics than in the physical sciences?
[7] The universe which presents itself to our reason is the same as that which presents itself to our feelings and impulses—an unending stream of sensations and memories - every one of which is different from every other. [8] Our first answer might be found in the character of the material with which political reasoning has to deal. [9] Before these, unless we can select and recognize and simplify, we must stand helpless, unable to either act or think. [10] Man has therefore to create entities that shall be the material of his reasoning, just as he creates entities to be the objects of his emotions and the stimulus of his instinctive inferences. [11] Exact reasoning requires exact comparison. [12] In the desert or the forest there were few things which our ancestors could compare exactly. [13] The heavenly bodies seem, indeed, to have been the first objects of consciously exact reasoning, because they were so distant that nothing could be known of them except position and movement, and their position and movement could be exactly compared from night to night.

Directions: The following question tests your ability to recognize grammar and usage errors. The sentence contains either a single error or no error at all. No sentence contains more than one error. The error, if there is one, is underlined and lettered. If the sentence contains an error, select the one underlined part that must be changed to make the sentence correct. If the sentence is correct, select choice (E). In choosing answer follow the requirements of standard written English.

The depletion of mineral resources, (A) the drying up of the oil fields, nuclear war, the destruction and contamination of the environment, food shortages, (B) economical panic, computers, robots, overproduction, backlogged inventories, trade friction, (C) violence by the unemployed - (D) these will all lead to uninhabited cities. (E) No error

Directions: The following question tests your ability to recognize grammar and usage errors. The sentence contains either a single error or no error at all. No sentence contains more than one error. The error, if there is one, is underlined and lettered. If the sentence contains an error, select the one underlined part that must be changed to make the sentence correct. If the sentence is correct, select choice (E). In choosing answer follow the requirements of standard written English.

As a recreation, (A) it is of such an engrossing character that it may (B) be relied to afford the (C) pleasant diversion from business worries (D) that so many tired mental workers need nowadays. (E) No error

Directions: The following question tests your ability to recognize grammar and usage errors. The sentence contains either a single error or no error at all. No sentence contains more than one error. The error, if there is one, is underlined and lettered. If the sentence contains an error, select the one underlined part that must be changed to make the sentence correct. If the sentence is correct, select choice (E). In choosing answer follow the requirements of standard written English.

But the passing (A) fancy has endured; the craze still (B) serves its useful purpose, and the fashion has acquired such permanence (C) that to convince most people that it (D) has come to stay. (E) No error

Directions: The following question tests your ability to recognize grammar and usage errors. The sentence contains either a single error or no error at all. No sentence contains more than one error. The error, if there is one, is underlined and lettered. If the sentence contains an error, select the one underlined part that must be changed to make the sentence correct. If the sentence is correct, select choice (E). In choosing answer follow the requirements of standard written English.

Even though Sarah is (A) senior than me not only in service but also in age, (B) it was difficult to find her trustworthy (C) enough to take charge of (D) so important a person on so long and dangerous a journey. (E) No error

Directions: The following question tests your ability to recognize grammar and usage errors. The sentence contains either a single error or no error at all. No sentence contains more than one error. The error, if there is one, is underlined and lettered. If the sentence contains an error, select the one underlined part that must be changed to make the sentence correct. If the sentence is correct, select choice (E). In choosing answer follow the requirements of standard written English.

General Ray (A) called upon both the print as well as the electronic media (B) to do constrictive criticism and hoped they (C) would help the people of the state by (D) showing them the way. (E) No error

Directions: The following question tests your ability to recognize grammar and usage errors. The sentence contains either a single error or no error at all. No sentence contains more than one error. The error, if there is one, is underlined and lettered. If the sentence contains an error, select the one underlined part that must be changed to make the sentence correct. If the sentence is correct, select choice (E). In choosing answer follow the requirements of standard written English.

I think that, even if there is (A) a little bloodletting, and even if life becomes (B) much more inconvenient (C) and difficult than it is now, we should let the human race continue to exist (D) over this Earth. (E) No error

Directions: The following question tests your ability to recognize grammar and usage errors. The sentence contains either a single error or no error at all. No sentence contains more than one error. The error, if there is one, is underlined and lettered. If the sentence contains an error, select the one underlined part that must be changed to make the sentence correct. If the sentence is correct, select choice (E). In choosing answer follow the requirements of standard written English.

(A) 'English grammar for students of Spanish' explains the terms (B) that are in Spanish textbooks and shows students (C) how they relate to English while teachers want to (D) stress on some grammatical rule. (E) No error

Directions: The following question tests your ability to recognize grammar and usage errors. The sentence contains either a single error or no error at all. No sentence contains more than one error. The error, if there is one, is underlined and lettered. If the sentence contains an error, select the one underlined part that must be changed to make the sentence correct. If the sentence is correct, select choice (E). In choosing answer follow the requirements of standard written English.

The coordinator (A) had planned to (B) overview the college elections for the organization of (C) student council; he (D) told that he was coming. (E) No error

Directions: The following question tests your ability to recognize grammar and usage errors. The sentence contains either a single error or no error at all. No sentence contains more than one error. The error, if there is one, is underlined and lettered. If the sentence contains an error, select the one underlined part that must be changed to make the sentence correct. If the sentence is correct, select choice (E). In choosing answer follow the requirements of standard written English.

Modernization (A) is the pursuit of Convenience, Extravagance, and Ease; (B) it signifies the ceaseless advance (C) toward (D) infinitive prosperity. (E) No error

Directions: The following question tests your ability to recognize grammar and usage errors. The sentence contains either a single error or no error at all. No sentence contains more than one error. The error, if there is one, is underlined and lettered. If the sentence contains an error, select the one underlined part that must be changed to make the sentence correct. If the sentence is correct, select choice (E). In choosing answer follow the requirements of standard written English.

(A) The more you block off the land, (B) more are the functions of nature (C) necessarily impaired, and we will (D) pay for this sooner or later. (E) No error

Directions: The following question tests your ability to recognize grammar and usage errors. The sentence contains either a single error or no error at all. No sentence contains more than one error. The error, if there is one, is underlined and lettered. If the sentence contains an error, select the one underlined part that must be changed to make the sentence correct. If the sentence is correct, select choice (E). In choosing answer follow the requirements of standard written English.

Maria had (A) a seizure while she was (B) holidaying yesterday, but she now claims (C) that she is not epileptic as she is (D) comparatively better today. (E) No error

Directions: The following question tests your ability to recognize grammar and usage errors. The sentence contains either a single error or no error at all. No sentence contains more than one error. The error, if there is one, is underlined and lettered. If the sentence contains an error, select the one underlined part that must be changed to make the sentence correct. If the sentence is correct, select choice (E). In choosing answer follow the requirements of standard written English.

Scientists have (A) made the world a better (B) place to live with their (C) constant effort and research work; Edison is one such personality, he (D) invented the gramophone and electricity. (E) No error

Directions: The following question tests your ability to recognize grammar and usage errors. The sentence contains either a single error or no error at all. No sentence contains more than one error. The error, if there is one, is underlined and lettered. If the sentence contains an error, select the one underlined part that must be changed to make the sentence correct. If the sentence is correct, select choice (E). In choosing answer follow the requirements of standard written English.

No matter what part (A) of the world and no matter (B) what kind of political or economic system, the expansion of the cities (C) are (D) more than apparent wherever you look. (E) No error