Five Minutes, Six Doubtful Choices
Ramesh has five minutes to answer an editing-and-choosing task. Six items are printed, each with options: (1) One of the boys ___ absent on Monday. [were / was] (2) He has been living in Bhubaneswar ___ five years. [since / for] (3) She is senior ___ me by two years. [than / to] (4) The number of dengue cases ___ risen sharply. [have / has] (5) It was ___ honest mistake. [a / an] (6) The new bus service is more ___ than taking a taxi. [economic / economical] Ramesh marks by sound. He chooses 'since' because five years feels like a long time, 'have' because 'cases' is plural and stands next to the verb, and 'a' because 'honest' begins with the letter h. He cannot state any rule behind his choices and has a further short question asking him to distinguish 'a number of' from 'the number of'.
1. Give the correct choice for items (1) to (5) and name the rule for each in one line.
Read the worked answer
(1) was - the subject is 'one', not 'boys'; phrases beginning 'one of the...' take a singular verb. (2) for - 'for' marks a length of time (five years); 'since' needs a starting point ('since 2019', 'since Monday'). (3) to - senior, junior, superior, inferior, prior and preferable take 'to', not 'than', because they come from Latin comparatives. (4) has - the subject is 'the number', a singular quantity; 'of dengue cases' only modifies it. (5) an - the choice follows the sound, not the letter; the h in 'honest' is silent, so the word begins with a vowel sound.
Note the pattern in Ramesh's errors: all three are cases where a nearby word ('boys', 'cases', 'h') is not the deciding word. The rule he needs is: find the head word of the subject or the sound of the next word before choosing.
2. Explain the 'number of' trap properly, with one correct example of each pattern.
Read the worked answer
The two patterns look identical and behave oppositely.
'The number of + plural noun' = a single figure, so it is singular: The number of dengue cases has risen sharply. Here you could replace the whole phrase with 'it'.
'A number of + plural noun' = 'several', so it is plural: A number of students have signed the petition. Here you could replace it with 'they'.
The test is substitution. If 'it' fits, use a singular verb; if 'they' fits, use a plural verb. Ramesh's error came from agreeing with the nearest noun, which is a sound instinct for ordinary subjects and a trap for this structure. The same trap appears with 'one of the', 'each of', 'neither of' and 'either of', all of which take singular verbs.
3. Choose between 'economic' and 'economical' in item (6), and explain why Ramesh's method of marking by sound failed him across the whole exercise.
Read the worked answer
Economical is correct: it means money-saving, thriftily priced. 'Economic' relates to the economy as a system ('economic policy', 'economic growth'). The sentence compares costs, so it needs 'economical'. A useful mnemonic is that 'economical' answers 'does it save money?', while 'economic' answers 'does it concern the economy?'
Ramesh's method fails because English marks meaning and structure, not familiarity. Three of his choices were made by proximity ('cases' next to the verb, 'h' next to 'a'), one by a feeling about length of time, and one by sound association. Proximity is a decoy in items (1) and (4); spelling is a decoy in (5); duration is a decoy in (2). A five-minute plan that would serve him better: classify the item - agreement, preposition, article, word choice - then recall the rule for that class, then check by substitution. Classification costs two seconds and prevents most of these errors.