Question

Fill in the blank with the correct preposition:

He is bent __________ mischief.

A) on

B) of

C) to

D) for

Answer 1

Hint: A preposition is a function word that combines with a noun or pronoun or noun phrase to form a prepositional phrase that can have an adverbial or adjectival relation to some other word.

Complete answer:

Let us analyze the given options:

Option (A), 'on', refers to ‘He is bent on mischief’ and uses the phrasal verb ‘bent on’ which means ‘fixed in your purpose’. Therefore, option (A) is correct as ‘he’ is perfectly described as being fixed on doing mischief by this option.

Option (B), ‘of', refers to ‘He is bent of mischief’ which uses ‘bent of’. ‘Of’ is a preposition that expresses direction. Therefore, option (B) is incorrect as ‘bent of’ does not make sense and is grammatically incorrect.

Option (C), ‘to', refers to ‘He is bent to mischief’ which uses ‘bent to’. ‘To’ is a preposition that indicates destination: In the direction of, and arriving at. Therefore, option (C) is incorrect as ‘bent to’ does not make sense and is grammatically incorrect.

Option (D), ‘for', ‘He is bent for mischief’ which uses ‘bent for’. ‘For’ is a preposition that means ‘Towards.’ Therefore, option (D) is incorrect as ‘bent for’ does not make sense and is grammatically incorrect.

Thus the correct answer is option ‘A’. 

Note:

In this question, it will be helpful for the student to recall the concept of phrasal verbs. A phrasal verb is an English verb followed by one or more particles where the combination behaves as a syntactic and semantic unit. For example, 'turn out' is a phrasal verb in the question 'how many turned out to vote?'