Question

Choose the appropriate preposition and fill in the blank:
I was shocked ___________________ what I saw. I had never seen anything like it before.
a) At
b) By
c) Both ‘a’ and ‘b’
d) None of these

Answer 1

Hint:Prepositions are words governing, and usually preceding, a noun or pronoun and expressing a relation to another word or element in the clause.

Complete answer:
First of all, a preposition is a word used to link nouns, pronouns, or phrases to other words within a sentence. They act to connect the people, objects, time, and locations of a sentence.
Now, here we have two options – ‘at’ and ‘by’ which are both suitable prepositions that can be used in the above-given sentence.
Both ‘at’ and ‘by’ refers to the reason or agent by which the person was shocked. Here, ‘shocked at’ means that the person was shocked by what s/he saw, i.e. what the person saw was the cause or reason behind his/ her shock.
Now, ‘shocked by’ also means the same thing, i.e. the reason for the person’s shock was due to whatever s/he saw.
Now, we can say with confidence that both the preposition is given in option ‘a’ and option ‘b’ are appropriate to use here.
So, we have the correct solution in option ‘c’, i.e. both ‘a’ and ‘b’.
Now, options ‘a’ and ‘b’ are the incorrect solutions because they are incorrect on their own, they both are appropriate and option ‘c’ gives us that solution.
And option‘d’ is incorrect because option ‘c’ is the correct solution.

Note:
All the prepositions given in the options may be a fit for the sentence or may not be a fit; one must be familiar with the usage of the preposition to help them to find the correct solution.