In the following question, two columns are given containing three phrases…
2025
In the following question, two columns are given containing three phrases each. In the first column phrases are A, B, C and in the second column, the phrases are D, E, F. A phrase from the first column may or may not connect with a phrase from the second column to make a grammatically and contextually correct sentence.
Column (1) | Column (2) |
(A) We should never isolate | (D) is now a dead letter. |
(B) We cannot find | (E) capital punishment is a deterrent. |
(C) The police are under instructions to impound | (F) such machines wherever they find them. |
- A.
C-E and A-F
- B.
A-E
- C.
B-D
- D.
C-F
- E.
None of the above
Attempted by 1 students.
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: D
Concept: In a phrase-combination question, a Column-1 fragment and a Column-2 fragment are joined with no extra words to form one sentence. A pairing is valid only if it clears two independent tests — (1) Grammatical completeness: the join must give a single finite clause with a proper subject–verb–object chain, not two unconnected finite verbs; and (2) Referential/contextual coherence: any pronoun in the Column-2 fragment must point back to a noun already present in the Column-1 fragment, and the resulting statement must make sense as one sentence.
Application: testing each pairing among the given choices
C + E — “The police are under instructions to impound” + “capital punishment is a deterrent.” “Impound” is a transitive verb of physical seizure and needs a tangible object, but “capital punishment is a deterrent” is itself a complete finite clause (a claim), not a noun phrase — the join fails the grammatical-completeness test.
A + F — “We should never isolate” + “such machines wherever they find them.” The join does form a finite clause, but “they” in “wherever they find them” has no antecedent connected to “We” — the subject of the main clause and the doer implied by “they” are two different, unnamed parties, so it fails the referential-coherence test.
A + E — “We should never isolate” + “capital punishment is a deterrent.” Same defect as step 1: “isolate” demands a direct object, but what follows is a separate finite clause, producing two unconnected verbs (“isolate” and “is”) with no linking word.
B + D — “We cannot find” + “is now a dead letter.” “Find” is transitive and needs a direct object immediately after it; instead the very next word is another finite verb, “is,” so the join never resolves into one grammatical sentence.
C + F — “The police are under instructions to impound” + “such machines wherever they find them.” “Impound” now takes the concrete object “such machines,” and the adverbial clause supplies its own consistent referents: “they” = the police (already the subject), “them” = the machines (the object just named). The join reads as one complete, self-consistent sentence.
Cross-check: Substitute the pronouns with their referents in the fifth pairing — “The police are under instructions to impound such machines wherever the police find such machines” — the sentence stays logically sound after substitution, confirming the referential chain closes cleanly. None of the other four tested pairings survives the same substitution without producing nonsense or a broken clause boundary.
Result: Only one pairing among the choices forms a grammatically complete and contextually coherent sentence; every other tested combination breaks down on either the transitive-verb-object test or the pronoun-antecedent test, so “None of the above” also fails since a valid pairing does exist among the given options.