Question

Combine the sentence correctly using; ‘so … that’.
The earrings were beautiful. I had to buy them.
A) The earrings were so beautiful that I had to buy them.
B) The earrings were so beautiful that I had to buy them.
C) So beautiful were the earrings that I had to buy them.
D) So that the earrings were beautiful that I had to buy them.

Answer 1

Hint: This question is from the topic of conjunctions. They refer to words and phrases that are used to join two separate words, phrases or clauses in a given sentence. The phrase ‘so that’ is a conjunction and is used to connect two different sentences or clauses. The words ‘so’ and ‘that’ when used separately in a sentence are also a conjunction but they have a different meaning.

Complete answer:
Let us look into the given options:
Option (A) The earrings were so beautiful that I had to buy them. This sentence is correct because the words ‘so’ and ‘that’ have been used correctly. The sentence means that the earrings were beautiful ‘to such an extent’ that the speaker had to buy them.
Option (B) The earrings were beautiful so that I had to buy them. Here the conjunction ‘so that’ has been used wrongly. This sentence means that the earrings were made ‘in order for’ the speaker to buy them. This does not make sense. The correct use of the conjunction would be ‘I am carrying extra money, so that I can buy something more expensive. Therefore, this option is incorrect.
Option (C) So beautiful were the earrings that I had to buy them. In this option also, the words ‘so’ and ‘that’ have been used correctly and the sentence also means the same as that in Option (A). Therefore, this option is also correct.
Option (D) So that the earrings were beautiful that I had to buy them. This sentence is entirely grammatically wrong. ‘So that’ has been used incorrectly and there is also an extra ‘that’ in the sentence. Thus this option is incorrect.

Thus, the correct answer is Option (A) The earrings were so beautiful that I had to buy them; and Option (C) So beautiful were the earrings that I had to buy them.

Note:
- Other meanings or other conjunctions similar to ‘so that’ are; in order that, such that, in such a way that, with the intention that, with the purpose that, in such a manner that, with the result that etc.
- It is also used as a means of achieving the specified result. For e.g. with the object of, in an attempt to, in an effort to, etc.