Choose the sentences that contain an error:
(A) Despite of the long queue, Kavya waited calmly at the passport office.
(B) Mira insisted on paying for the auto to the railway station.
(C) The sack of wheat in the storeroom was so heavy to lift alone.
(D) The raw mangoes from Nani’s tree taste sour.
Choose the correct answer from the options given below:
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 1
The correct answer is Option (1) → (A) and (C) only
(A) Despite of the long queue, Kavya waited calmly at the passport office. — Incorrect.
- “Despite” is followed straight away by the noun, with no “of”. “In spite of” is the form that takes “of”.
- Correct form: Despite the long queue, Kavya waited calmly at the passport office.
(B) Mira insisted on paying for the auto to the railway station. — Correct.
- “Insist” is followed by “on” + the verb + -ing.
- So “insisted on paying” is right.
(C) The sack of wheat in the storeroom was so heavy to lift alone. — Incorrect.
- To say that something is so heavy that it cannot be lifted, English uses “too + adjective + to + verb”.
- “So” cannot be joined to “to lift” in this way, so “so heavy” must be “too heavy”.
- Correct form: The sack of wheat in the storeroom was too heavy to lift alone.
(D) The raw mangoes from Nani’s tree taste sour. — Correct.
- “Taste” here tells what the mangoes are like, not an action, so it is followed by an adjective.
- So “taste sour” is right.