Question

Fill in the blanks with the correct homophones:
Rama wants to ________ a flat _______ selling his house. (by/buy)

Answer 1

Hint: The given words have the same sound, but have different spellings and meanings.So, identify the meaning of the sentence and options.

Complete answer:Homonyms refer to those words that have the same
sound or same spelling but different meanings. Example- Fan has two meanings, first
meaning refers to the ceiling fan that rotates and produces air and the second meaning
refers to the admirer or follower of a popular figure.

A homophone is a word that is pronounced the same as another word but differs in meaning. A homophone may also differ in spelling. For example, the words ‘write’ and ‘right’ are homophones. They differ in spelling, but are pronounced the same and have a different meaning.
In the given sentence, the words required are a verb and a preposition respectively. This means that we need to identify the meaning of each word first.

We know that the two words are ‘by’ and ‘buy’. Let’s find out their meanings.
The word ‘by’ refers to ‘identifying the agent performing an action’. This word is largely used as a preposition. Prepositions are usually used to specify the place of the noun, or provide more context in the sentence. This word cannot be used after the first blank as there is already a preposition before the blank i.e. ‘to’. So, this will be used in the second blank.

The word ‘buy’ refers to ‘obtain in exchange for payment’. This word is largely used as a verb. Verbs are action words used to describe the action performed by the noun. This word will be used in the first blank as the second blank is followed by a verb.

So, we can say that the correct answer will be written in the following way:
Rama wants to buy a flat by selling his house.

Note: Try to find the similarities and differences between the each of the words in the options. Note those down, and appropriately choose the required option.