Q&A: practice questions with answers

Concept: A single word that names the act of one human killing another.

1. Homicide = homo (human) + -cide (killing) → the killing of a person by another.
2. Paternity = fatherhood; Maternity = motherhood; Foeticide = killing a foetus (unborn baby).

Trick: Words ending in -cide mean 'killing': suicide (self), patricide (father), infanticide (infant), genocide (a race).

Answer: (A) Homicide

Concept: Idioms carry a fixed, non-literal meaning.

1. 'Look before you leap' = think about what could happen before you act.
2. So it means weighing the results first — option (D).
3. Concealing, humility and depending on others are unrelated ideas.

Trick: Picture it: you check how deep the water is before jumping — that is careful planning.

Answer: (D) Analyze the consequences before making a decision

Concept: An action that started in the past and is still going on takes the present perfect continuous.

1. 'all my working life' = from the start of my career till now → have been doing is right.
2. 'a profession I enjoy' — simple present for a lasting liking, correct.
3. 'fortunate that…' is a correct adjective + that-clause. No error.

Trick: Check the time marker first: 'since / for / all my life' + ongoing action → have/has been + V-ing.

Answer: (D) No correction required

Concept: 'No sooner' is always paired with 'than', never with 'when'.

1. Correct pair: No sooner … than; Hardly/Scarcely … when.
2. So part (C) 'the hall when' → 'the hall than'.
3. Fixed version: '…entered the hall than the bell…'.

Trick: 'No sooner' is a comparative (sooner) — and comparatives take than.

Answer: (C) the hall when

Concept: Fixed phrase: 'be taken aback by something' = be shocked by it.

1. 'Taken aback' is passive in form, so the cause is introduced by by.
2. The supervisor was taken aback by the unexpected departure…
3. 'at' suits 'surprised at', not 'taken aback'.

Trick: Passive-looking phrases (taken aback, shocked, startled) → the cause usually follows 'by'.

Answer: (A) by

Concept: Pick the correctly spelt word that fits the context (a structure over water).

1. Correct spelling: b-r-i-d-g-e.
2. brige (no d), bridg (no final e), breidge (extra e) are all wrong.

Trick: Silent 'd' before 'ge': bridge, edge, judge, badge, lodge.

Answer: (C) bridge

Concept: Sacrilege = disrespect shown to something holy.

1. Correct form: sac-ri-lege (i after r, e after l).
2. Sacrelige and Sacrilage change vowels; Sasrilege uses s for c.

Trick: Think 'sacri-' as in sacred/sacrifice + '-lege' — the common trap is writing 'religious' order (sacrelige).

Answer: (A) Sacrilege

Concept: 'Over' = above something (without touching); 'on' = in contact with a surface.

1. A flying helicopter is above the city, not touching it.
2. So 'flew on the city' → flew over the city.
3. 'in' and 'at' do not show position above.

Trick: Planes/birds/helicopters fly over a place; a book lies on a table.

Answer: (A) over the city

Concept: 'Do away with' = abolish / get rid of.

1. The particle is fixed: away with, never away for.
2. So the sentence reads: …has done away with redundant procedures…
3. Options (A) and (C) are not real idiomatic phrasal verbs.

Trick: do away with = remove; do without = manage without; do up = decorate.

Answer: (B) Done away with

Concept: Past continuous passive = was/were + being + V3.

1. Active: The trainees were imitating … → past continuous.
2. New subject 'The way of the description…' is singular → 'was being imitated'.
3. Add 'by the trainees' at the end.

Trick: Spot 'being' + correct singular verb: (B) has 'were', (A)/(C) lack 'being' → only (D) remains.

Answer: (D) The way of the description by the instructor was being imitated by the trainees.

Concept: Past perfect passive 'had been + V3' becomes active 'had + V3'.

1. Doer 'the committee' becomes the subject; 'all the preparations' becomes the object.
2. had been completed → had completed; 'before we arrived' stays the same.
3. Subject–verb–object order restored; time clause unchanged.

Trick: Tense never changes in voice change — only (C) keeps past perfect.

Answer: (C) The committee had completed all the preparations before we arrived.

Concept: Exclamation 'What a + adj + noun!' → 'exclaimed that' + statement using 'very'.

1. said → exclaimed that; 'What a beautiful day' → 'a very beautiful day'.
2. today → that day; is → was.
3. Result: Rohit exclaimed that that day was a very beautiful day.

Trick: Two 'that's are needed — conjunction + 'that day'. Option (C) drops one; (B) has wrong word order.

Answer: (D) Rohit exclaimed that that day was a very beautiful day.

Concept: 'asked if/whether' shows the original was a yes/no question.

1. Remove 'if', put the words in quotes with a question mark.
2. knew (past) → know (present); I → you (speaker was talking to me).
3. Question form: Do you know…?

Trick: Reverse the reported shifts: past → present, then add the helping verb do/does.

Answer: (A) He asked, "Do you know the way to the library?"

Concept: Some nouns take fixed prepositions; 'through' shows the means of a change.

1. familiarity with something — fixed usage.
2. increased through hands-on experience — by means of practice.
3. Only option (B) fits both blanks.

Trick: Solve the first blank alone: 'familiar/familiarity' → 'with' — only one option starts with 'with'.

Answer: (B) with, through

Concept: In reported speech, a past perfect cannot shift further back, so in direct speech it is kept as it is.

1. Drop 'said that', add quotation marks.
2. 'by the time Meera arrived' — time clause, keeps simple past.
3. 'had already started leaving' stays unchanged.

Trick: Only the reporting part changes here — compare options word-for-word with the given clause; (C) is the exact copy.

Answer: (C) Ravi said, "By the time Meera arrived, the visitors had already started leaving."

Concept: 'It is/was believed that…' has no doer; in active we add a general subject such as 'People'.

1. was believed → People believed (past kept).
2. had been built by a civilization → a civilization had built the monuments.
3. (B) changes tense to 'believe'; (A) 'They' has no reference; (D) is still passive.

Trick: Impersonal passive → 'People/We' + same tense of the main verb.

Answer: (C) People widely believed that a previously unknown civilization had built the ancient monuments.

Concept: Nouns from adjectives ending in '-cient' end in '-ciency'.

1. proficient → proficiency, so 'Proficiancy' is wrong.
2. Acknowledgment (accepted US/alternative spelling), Perseverance, Reputable — all correct.

Trick: efficient → efficiency, sufficient → sufficiency, proficient → proficiency: '-cient' always gives '-ciency'.

Answer: (B) Proficiancy

Concept: Past continuous active (was/were + V-ing) → passive was/were + being + V3.

1. 'was painting' → 'was being painted'.
2. Object 'the mural' becomes subject; add 'by Amit'.
3. (A) is present, (C) present perfect, (D) simple past — tense changed.

Trick: Continuous tense in active = 'being' in passive. Only (A) and (B) have 'being'; past needs 'was' → (B).

Answer: (B) The mural was being painted by Amit.

Concept: A word working as the object of a verb and naming an idea is a noun.

1. In 'value sustainability', 'value' is the verb; value what? → sustainability (object).
2. 'Sustainability' names a quality/idea → abstract noun (from adjective 'sustainable').
3. It neither shows action, nor describes a noun or a verb.

Trick: Suffix '-ity' (ability, purity, sustainability) almost always makes a noun.

Answer: (C) Noun

Concept: In simple present, a singular subject takes the verb with -s/-es.

1. Subject = 'The Swedish government' — one body, singular.
2. Singular subject → invests.
3. 'resources' is inside 'in …' phrase; 'heavily' is an adverb — neither decides the verb; the sentence is present tense.

Trick: Find the subject by asking 'who invests?' — ignore nouns that come after the verb.

Answer: (B) Because "government" is a singular subject