त्वरित लिंक्स
English Language
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Read the following sentences containing advanced structural elements, subject-verb concord complexities, correlative conjunctions, and participial phrase modifiers: I. Not only the principal investigator but also the senior research assistants was thoroughly questioned regarding the anomalous data points discovered during the clinical trial. II. Walking through the pristine botanical gardens during the early morning hours, a rare specimen of tropical orchid caught the botanist's discerning eye. III. The board of directors, accompanied by their legal counsel and external financial consultants, have unanimously approved the proposed multinational merger. IV. Each of the candidates who applied for the prestigious diplomatic fellowship demonstrated exceptional proficiency in resolving complex international disputes. Identify the option that correctly evaluates the grammatical, syntactic, and structural validity of sentences I, II, III, and IV according to standard English grammar.
✓ Correct! Well done.
✗ Not quite — the correct answer is highlighted above.
Detailed Explanation
Let us analyze each sentence individually according to advanced English grammar rules:
I. **Incorrect**: The sentence uses the correlative conjunction construction "Not only... but also". According to the rule of proximity, when subjects are joined by 'either/or', 'neither/nor', or 'not only/but also', the verb must agree with the subject closest to it. Here, the closest subject is the plural noun phrase "the senior research assistants". Therefore, the verb must be plural ('were'), not singular ('was').
II. **Incorrect**: This sentence contains a classic dangling modifier (or dangling participle). The introductory participial phrase "Walking through the pristine botanical gardens during the early morning hours" lacks a logical grammatical subject to modify, implying illogically that the "rare specimen of tropical orchid" was walking. It should be rewritten with the logical doer as the subject (e.g., "While the botanist was walking...").
III. **Incorrect**: Collective nouns and subjects modified by phrasal modifiers introduced by expressions such as 'accompanied by', 'along with', or 'together with' do not change the grammatical number of the primary subject. The head subject is "The board of directors", which is treated as a singular collective unit here (as indicated by the singular pronoun 'their' vs collective cohesion, but more strictly, collective nouns take singular verbs when acting as a single unit). Alternatively, when subjects are linked by 'accompanied by', the verb agrees with the first subject ("The board" -> 'has'), not the adjunct noun phrase.
IV. **Correct**: The subject is "Each of the candidates", where the head word "Each" is singular and correctly takes the singular verb 'demonstrated' (the relative clause "who applied for the prestigious diplomatic fellowship" modifies 'candidates'). The structure is entirely sound.
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