English Language

Sentence Improvement

821 Questions
All Tense and Time Sequence 181 Verb-Governed Prepositions 145 Lexical Confusables 75 Subject-Verb Agreement 59 Modifiers 48 Determiners and Quantifiers 47 Infinitive vs. Gerund 47 Correlative and Paired Conjunctions 35 Conditional Sentences 30 Pronoun Case and Agreement 24 Redundancy 24 Parallel Structure 20 Question Tags 10 Reported Speech 8

Sentence Improvement Questions

Multiple choice

Directions: Give the appropriate replacement for the underlined word(s) in the given sentence to make it grammatically correct. If no improvement is needed, mark (4) as the answer.

Science merely reflects the social forces with which it is surrounded.

  1. on

  2. to

  3. by

  4. No improvement needed
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
C Correct answer
Explanation

The verb 'surround' is used with the preposition 'by' in the passive voice to indicate what is encircling something. 'With' is incorrect in this specific idiomatic context.

Multiple choice

Directions: Give the appropriate replacement for the underlined word(s) in the given sentence to make it grammatically correct. If no improvement is needed, mark (4) as the answer.

What are needed are not clothes but food.

  1. were

  2. is

  3. was

  4. No improvement needed
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
B Correct answer
Explanation

Error of subject-verb agreement. The sentence implies that one out of the two things is needed. So, pronoun 'what' is to be followed by a singular auxilary.

Multiple choice

Directions: Give the appropriate replacement for the underlined word(s) in the given sentence to make it grammatically correct. If no improvement is needed, mark (4) as the answer.

The waitress handed over two burning cups of tea and left.

  1. steaming

  2. heating

  3. sweating

  4. No improvement needed
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
A Correct answer
Explanation

Error of vocabulary usage. 'Burning cups' is a wrong usage, and for cups full of very hot tea or coffee we use the term 'steaming cups'.

Multiple choice

Directions: Give the appropriate replacement for the underlined word(s) in the given sentence to make it grammatically correct. If no improvement is needed, mark (4) as the answer.

We spent good time discussing about his character.

  1. on his character

  2. of his character

  3. his character

  4. No improvement needed
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
C Correct answer
Explanation

Error of prepositional usage. Words like 'demand', 'discuss', etc (whenever used as verbs) do not take preposition after themselves. So, preposition 'about' is not required.

Multiple choice

Directions: Give the appropriate replacement for the underlined word(s) in the given sentence to make it grammatically correct. If no improvement is needed, mark (4) as the answer.

Mr. Dalip had staying here since 1995.

  1. has staying

  2. has stayed

  3. has been staying

  4. No improvement needed
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
C Correct answer
Explanation

Case of present perfect continuous tense. Whenever an action of past continues till the time of speaking, we use present perfect continuous tense. In such case, we use 'has/have + been + verb+ing'.

Multiple choice

Directions: Give the appropriate replacement for the underlined word(s) in the given sentence to make it grammatically correct. If no improvement is needed, mark (4) as the answer.

Taj Mahal is the most unique piece of art.

  1. unique

  2. a unique

  3. an unique

  4. No improvement needed
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
B Correct answer
Explanation

Error of 'article' usage. The sentence implies that Taj Mahal is one of the unique pieces of fine arts. So, article 'a' should be used in place of 'the most', as we use 'the' only in case of superlatives.

Multiple choice

Directions: Give the appropriate replacement for the underlined word(s) in the given sentence to make it grammatically correct. If no improvement is needed, mark (4) as the answer.

He stayed back so that it can look as if he was unaware of the entire incident.

  1. would look

  2. may look

  3. will look

  4. No improvement needed
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
A Correct answer
Explanation

Error of modal usage. Whenever we 'wish' for something to happen, we use modal 'would' rather than using 'can', which shows 'capability' and not 'a wish'.

Multiple choice

Directions: Give the appropriate replacement for the underlined word(s) in the given sentence to make it grammatically correct. If no improvement is needed, mark (4) as the answer.

Five years ago today, I was sitting in a small Japanese car, driving across Poland towards Berlin.

  1. on this day

  2. on day

  3. this day

  4. No improvement needed
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
C Correct answer
Explanation

When we refer to the same day of the past (as of the present date but of some other year), we use 'this day'.

Multiple choice

Directions: Give the appropriate replacement for the underlined word(s) in the given sentence to make it grammatically correct. If no improvement is needed, mark (4) as the answer.

Rural life in under developed countries has been stagnated for countries on end.

  1. stagnantly

  2. stagnating

  3. stagnation

  4. No improvement needed
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
B Correct answer
Explanation

Error of tense usage. This is a case of present perfect continuous tense. In such cases, we use 'has been + verb+ing'. Thus, 'stagnating'.

Multiple choice

Directions: Give the appropriate replacement for the underlined word(s) in the given sentence to make it grammatically correct. If no improvement is needed, mark (4) as the answer.

At the time of the sale the machine tools suffer further taxation.

  1. a sale

  2. only

  3. sale

  4. No improvement needed
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
C Correct answer
Explanation

Error of 'article' usage. This sentence refers to a general fact, not to a specific one. So, 'the sale' should be replaced with 'sale' as article 'the' is used for specific things.