Like the rest of Chennai, our apartment has a water crisis. When the Secretary…
2024
Like the rest of Chennai, our apartment has a water crisis. When the Secretary suggested installing another bore well, the President did not agree _1_ him. Last week the executive committee failed to agree _2_ a common plan of action. The contractor needed the approval of the executive committee _3_ he could start installing another bore well. As he had misappropriated the funds on an earlier occasion, the President did not approve _4_ his proposal.
Fill in the 4th blank
- A.
in
- B.
to
- C.
of
- D.
with
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: C
Certain English verbs form fixed prepositional-verb pairings whose meaning depends entirely on the specific preposition that follows them; using the wrong preposition after such a verb produces an ungrammatical or wrong-meaning sentence, even though the verb itself is correct. ‘Approve’ is one such verb: ‘approve of somebody/something’ means to hold a favourable opinion of them, while ‘approve’ used without ‘of’ (approve a plan/proposal) means to officially sanction or pass it.
In this passage, blank 4 completes: ‘the President did not approve _4_ his proposal.’ The context makes clear this is about the President’s personal opinion of the contractor’s proposal (he distrusts the contractor because of an earlier misappropriation of funds), not an official act of sanctioning a document. That sense requires the fixed prepositional verb ‘approve of’ — so the blank must be filled with ‘of’.
This also fits the passage’s larger pattern of collocations: the earlier blanks in the same passage test ‘agree with (a person)’ and ‘agree to (a plan)’, which are different fixed pairings from ‘approve of’. Confusing these patterns is the main trap in this kind of item.
‘in’ — there is no standard English pairing ‘approve in’; it does not collocate with ‘approve’ in any sense.
‘to’ — ‘approve’ does not take ‘to’; that pairing belongs to a different verb, ‘agree to (a plan)’.
‘of’ — completes the correct fixed prepositional verb ‘approve of’.
‘with’ — ‘approve’ does not take ‘with’ either; that pairing belongs to a different verb, ‘agree with (a person)’.