Question

Pick the part of the sentence that contains an error.
(a) The voice of sanity and patriotism (b) are important to (c) dispel the prevalent confusion.
a) (a)
b) (b)
c) (c)
d) No Error

Answer 1

Hint: The question suggests that, we have to figure out if all the three sub parts of the question are correct or not. Let us analyse all the three sub parts to identify if there exists any error. Check for subject- verb agreement and punctuation.

Complete step by step answer:
Let us discuss all the three options in detail to check if they have been correctly formed.

a) The voice of sanity and patriotism: In the given sentence ‘the voice’ acts as the subject which is a singular noun. The phrase ‘of sanity and patriotism’ plays the role of an adjective to the subject. Therefore, this subpart doesn’t contain any error.
b) are important to: This subpart is followed by the subpart ‘The voice of sanity and patriotism’. Since the subject ‘the voice’ is in singular form, the verb to be followed has to be in singular form too. Therefore, ‘are’ needs to be replaced by ‘is’, since ‘is’ is the singular form of the verb ‘be’. The correct form of this sub part would be ‘is important to’.
c) dispel the prevalent confusion: In this subpart the verb ‘dispel’ is describing the action on the noun ‘confusion’ described by the adjective ‘prevalent’. Therefore, the construction of this subpart is perfectly fine.
d) No Error: This option doesn’t remain prevalent as there is an error in option b.

Hence, the correct answer is option b.

Note:
Analyse the prepositions, verbs, adjectives, nouns etc carefully and establish the right connection between them. If our subject is singular then we need to use the corresponding singular form of the verb. Same applies to plural. For instance: He study (incorrect); He studies(correct)