Question

Find out which part of the sentence has an error, if any.
Many times the news has been published (a) in the paper that the end of the world will be certain (b) if a nuclear war breaks out. (c) No error (d)
a) a
b) b
c) c
d) d

Answer 1

Hint: The subject, verb, and object should all match with each other. The plurality of the verb should also align with the given subject. Check the articles of the given articles and whether any are missing.

Complete answer:
In order to find the error in the given sentence, we must first understand how sentences are constructed. We must identify the different parts of speech in the given sentence.
The most basic construction in English is ‘subject + verb + object’. However, it becomes more complicated when other parts of speech come into play. We can add describing words such as adjectives, adverbs, and prepositions. Adjectives are usually placed before a noun and adverbs are usually placed before an adjective or verb. The articles should be placed in appropriate places, as required.

Let’s look at the given sentence: The sentence starts with the phrase ‘many times the news has been published’. The phrase ‘many times’ is called an adjunct phrase. They cannot be used at the beginning of the sentence. The next parts are constructed correctly and are all grammatically correct.

Now, we know what we are looking for. Let’s look at the given options-
option ‘a’ - This phrase starts off incorrectly. It is grammatically unsound to begin a sentence with an adjunct. This is the required answer. So, this is the correct option.
option ‘b’ - This part of the sentence aligns with everything perfectly and all clauses are correctly placed. This is not the required answer. So, this is an incorrect option.
option ‘c’ - This part of the sentence also aligns with everything perfectly and all clauses are correctly placed. This is not the required answer. So, this is an incorrect option.
option ‘d’ - This option is incorrect as we have already found an error in the above-given options.

Note:
Dissect the sentence and go through parts of the sentence separately, and see if there are any errors to be worth noting. Then, choose the appropriate option accordingly.