Read the sentence and identify the underlined part that contains an error. If…
2023
Read the sentence and identify the underlined part that contains an error. If no underlined part contains an error, choose ‘None of the above’.
Man has scarcely understand the importance of clean water.
Answer: B. scarcely understand the importance — ConceptThe present perfect uses a present-tense form of have followed by the past participle of the main verb. An adverb may appear between the auxiliary and…
- A.
Man has
- B.
scarcely understand the importance
- C.
of clean water.
- D.
More than one of the above
- E.
None of the above
Attempted by 1 students.
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: B
Concept
The present perfect uses a present-tense form of have followed by the past participle of the main verb. An adverb may appear between the auxiliary and the participle without changing that verb-form requirement.
A generic mass-style noun such as Man, meaning humankind, may take a singular verb; a prepositional phrase can complete a noun without creating a separate agreement error.
Application
Identify the verb phrase: has is the present-tense perfect auxiliary, and scarcely is an adverb placed after it.
Apply the perfect-form rule: the lexical verb must be a past participle. Understand is the base form, whereas understood is its past participle.
Correct the phrase to has scarcely understood the importance; the remaining words form a grammatical sentence.
Cross-check and contrast
Man has uses singular agreement with Man in its generic sense of humankind.
Of clean water is a prepositional complement of importance.
More than one of the above would require at least two independently erroneous underlined parts.
None of the above would require every underlined part to be error-free.
Therefore, the erroneous segment is “scarcely understand the importance”; it should read “scarcely understood the importance”.