Question

A sentence can be formed when A, B, C, D are put in an order. Identify the part which has an error.
A) When the young boy
B) Was accused
C) To steal,
D) He started to cry.

Answer 1

Hint: If the options A, B, C, D are to be arranged correctly to form a sentence, then the sentence will be “When the young boy was accused to steal, he started to cry.” Clearly, there is some error in one part of the sentence. Let’s analyze each part and find out the error.

Complete answer:
Let us start with option A.
Option A is ‘when the young boy’. According to the hint, the phrase correctly fits in the sentence. This means that there is no error in this part of the sentence. Therefore, option A is incorrect.
Option B is ‘was accused’. According to the hint, the phrase correctly fits in the sentence. This means that the phrase is grammatically correct and there is no error in this part of the sentence. Therefore, option B is also incorrect.
Option C is ‘to steal’. After the verb accused, the preposition ‘of’ is generally used. Therefore, ‘to’ is wrong here. Also, since the sentence is in past continuous tense, therefore, verb steal will be in gerund form that will be ‘stealing’. Hence, the correct phrase will be ‘of stealing’. Thus option C is the correct answer.
Option D is ‘he started to cry’. According to the hint, the phrase correctly fits in the sentence. This means that there is no error in this part of the sentence. Therefore, option D is incorrect.

Note:
The gerunds are the form of the verb. They are the words that end at –ing. Therefore, in continuous tense, the gerund form of the verb is used. In this case, also, this principle can be applied to identify the most suitable answer.