Complete the 12 sentences below. Choose the best answer for each one.
1............... the report's formidable evidential base, the committee rejected its recommendation as politically unworkable.
Wrong!
Use "Despite" before a noun phrase; "although" must introduce a finite clause.
2The minister's denial was ............... narrowly framed that it invited more damaging questions than it answered.
Wrong!
Use "so" before an adjective; "such" modifies a noun phrase.
3............... the unredacted emails, senior officials knew the deadline was fictitious.
Wrong!
Use "Judging by" to introduce evidence from which an inference is drawn.
4At no point ............... the conflict between commercial confidentiality and public accountability.
Wrong!
After fronted negative adverbials such as "at no point", use subject-auxiliary inversion: "did the review address".
5............... twice about the liquidity risk, the board nevertheless approved the acquisition.
Wrong!
Use "Having been warned" when the subject of the main clause received the warning, not gave it.
6............... treating uncertainty as a defect rather than a feature, the model distorted the very data it was meant to clarify.
Wrong!
Use "By" plus a gerund to express means; "because" introduces a finite clause.
7The policy treated procedural delay ............... a form of consent, a move that alarmed civil-liberties lawyers.
Wrong!
Use "as" to identify the role in which something is treated.
8The prosecution collapsed because the witness recanted, ............... because the evidence was weak.
Wrong!
Use "rather than" to link parallel phrases directly inside the clause.
9The revised protocol was circulated to the auditors but not to the consultants, ............... having drafted the brief themselves.
Wrong!
"The latter" refers to the second of two previously mentioned items, here the consultants, who did not need the protocol because they had drafted the brief.
10The safeguard was omitted ............... a drafting error, not because the negotiators had rejected it.
Wrong!
Use "owing to" before a noun phrase to give the cause.
11The agency relied on an algorithm ............... assumptions were never disclosed to the applicants it ranked.
Wrong!
Use "whose" to express possession or association before a noun.
12............... the archive been indexed properly, the discrepancy would have emerged years earlier.
Wrong!
Use "Had" with subject-auxiliary inversion as a formal alternative to "if ... had".
Exercise complete
0 out of 12
correct answers
Answers
- Despite the report’s formidable evidential base, the committee rejected its recommendation as politically unworkable.
- The minister’s denial was so narrowly framed that it invited more damaging questions than it answered.
- Judging by the unredacted emails, senior officials knew the deadline was fictitious.
- At no point did the review address the conflict between commercial confidentiality and public accountability.
- Having been warned twice about the liquidity risk, the board nevertheless approved the acquisition.
- By treating uncertainty as a defect rather than a feature, the model distorted the very data it was meant to clarify.
- The policy treated procedural delay as a form of consent, a move that alarmed civil-liberties lawyers.
- The prosecution collapsed because the witness recanted, rather than because the evidence was weak.
- The revised protocol was circulated to the auditors but not to the consultants, the latter having drafted the brief themselves.
- The safeguard was omitted owing to a drafting error, not because the negotiators had rejected it.
- The agency relied on an algorithm whose assumptions were never disclosed to the applicants it ranked.
- Had the archive been indexed properly, the discrepancy would have emerged years earlier.