In each of the following sentences, a part of the sentence is underlined.…
2023
In each of the following sentences, a part of the sentence is underlined. Beneath each sentence, four different ways of phrasing the underlined part are indicated. Choose the best alternative from among the four.
Amar, Binod, Chand and me were all cited for contempt of court.
- A.
Amar, Binod, Chand and me were all cited
- B.
Amar, Binod, Chand and I were all cited
- C.
Amar, Binod, Chand and I were the ones cited
- D.
Amar, Binod, Chand and I were cited
Attempted by 18 students.
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: B
The underlined phrase “Amar, Binod, Chand and me” is the subject of the verb “were cited.” A pronoun that acts as a subject must be in the subjective (nominative) case, so the first-person pronoun here must be “I,” not the objective-case “me.”
Quick test: drop the other names and read the pronoun alone with the verb, changing it to agree with the single subject. “…me was cited” is clearly wrong, while “…I was cited” is correct. This confirms that the first-person pronoun must be the subjective-case “I.”
The task asks for the best alternative — the one that corrects the error while keeping the rest of the original sentence intact. “Amar, Binod, Chand and I were all cited” fixes only the pronoun and preserves the word “all,” which keeps the original emphasis that every one of the four was cited. The other grammatically-acceptable options either drop “all” or reword the sentence unnecessarily, so they are not the best choice.
Hence the correct answer is “Amar, Binod, Chand and I were all cited.”