Which one of the following phrasal verbs may be used in the blank space in the sentence, “We were happy in the beginning, but now all the troubles have ____ (appeared)”?

Correct — A, (a) cropped up.

The gloss in brackets is ‘(appeared)’, and the phrasal verb English uses for something appearing without warning — especially something unwelcome — is ‘crop up’. Problems crop up, difficulties crop up, an urgent matter crops up, an objection crops up, a name crops up in a file. The metaphor is geological: a stratum that comes to the surface is said to crop out, and something that crops up has surfaced where it was not looked for.

That extra element of unexpectedness is what the sentence needs, and the sentence says so twice. ‘We were happy in the beginning, but now…’ sets a contrast between an untroubled start and a difficult present, and the word ‘but’ marks the turn. The troubles were not foreseen at the beginning; they have appeared since. A plain verb such as ‘appeared’ would report the fact and lose the surprise, which is why the item asks for the phrasal verb rather than the gloss.

The collocation is the second reason to be confident. ‘Crop up’ attaches naturally to troubles, problems, difficulties, questions and objections — the nouns of things going wrong — and ‘all the troubles have cropped up’ is the way the language actually says this. The other three options are all real English phrases, but none of them is the phrase for a difficulty surfacing unexpectedly, and one of them is reserved by this very paper for a different gloss at the next question.

Why the others are wrong

• (b)come about — ‘Come about’ means to happen or to take place, and it is normally used when the interest is in how something happened — how did it come about that the file was never registered? Applied to troubles it would report that they occurred, which is close to the gloss but not the same as it: ‘come about’ carries nothing of the unexpected surfacing that ‘crop up’ carries, and it does not have the same attachment to nouns of difficulty. This paper settles the distinction itself. The very next item is glossed ‘(happened)’ and its answer is ‘came about’, while this one is glossed ‘(appeared)’; the two stems have been written to separate the two senses.
• (c)come out — ‘Come out’ is about becoming known or being issued. A book, a report or a new edition comes out; the truth comes out when it is no longer concealed; a stain comes out of cloth; a photograph comes out well or badly. What all these have in common is emergence into view from something that was covering it, and that requires the thing to have existed already, hidden. The sentence is not saying that pre-existing troubles have been discovered; it is saying that troubles have arisen since a happy beginning. The difference between being revealed and coming into being is the whole distance between this option and the answer.
• (d)rushed in — ‘Rush in’ means to enter hurriedly, or figuratively to act without due thought, as in the proverb about fools rushing in where angels fear to tread. It wants a place to be entered or an action to be undertaken, and its subject is normally a person who does the rushing. Troubles are not agents that enter a room, and nothing in the sentence describes hasty action by anybody. This is the option furthest from the gloss, and its presence is a reminder that a set of four need not be four near-misses; some options are there to be discarded at once.

The set at Q14 to Q17 tests whether a candidate knows which combination of verb and particle English uses for a given meaning, and this item shows why the gloss alone is not enough. ‘Appeared’ is a plain verb covering a wide field, and English has several phrasal verbs inside that field, each adding something of its own.

Crop up adds unexpectedness and attaches to difficulties. Turn up adds chance and attaches to people and to lost things — he turned up an hour late, the missing register turned up in another almirah. Come up adds the idea of something arising for attention, especially in a meeting or a conversation — the matter came up before the committee. Show up is close to turn up but more informal. Spring up adds suddenness and multiplicity — new units sprang up around the town. Break out is reserved for war, fire, disease and disorder.

So the question a candidate should ask is not ‘which of these means appeared?’ but ‘which of these means appeared in this way, of this kind of thing?’ The noun in the sentence usually decides. Troubles crop up; guests turn up; epidemics break out; questions come up.

The same discipline answers the rest of the set, because each item pairs a gloss with a sentence whose subject and context narrow the field to one phrase.

Key facts

• ‘Crop up’ means to appear or arise unexpectedly, and it attaches particularly to troubles, problems, difficulties, questions and objections.
• The metaphor is geological — a stratum that reaches the surface is said to crop out — which is where the sense of surfacing unlooked-for comes from.
• ‘Come about’ means to happen or take place, usually with attention to the manner; this paper keys it at the next question, which is glossed ‘(happened)’.
• ‘Come out’ means to be published or issued, or to become known, and it presupposes something that already existed but was not in view.
• ‘Rush in’ means to enter hurriedly or to act without due thought, and it needs a person as its subject.
• Neighbouring phrases in the same field differ by what they attach to: guests turn up, matters come up, epidemics break out, new units spring up.

Common traps

• Answering from the gloss alone. ‘Appeared’ covers several phrasal verbs, and the noun in the sentence decides which of them the language uses.
• Choosing ‘come about’ without noticing that the paper reserves it for the neighbouring item, which is glossed ‘(happened)’.
• Treating ‘come out’ as a general word for appearing, when it means being issued or becoming known and assumes prior existence.
• Ignoring the contrast set up by ‘in the beginning, but now’, which is what makes the unexpectedness part of the meaning required.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which one of the following phrasal verbs may be used in the blank space in the sentence, “An urgent matter has ____ (arisen unexpectedly) and the inspection must be postponed”?

  • (a)cropped up
  • (b)come out
  • (c)rushed in
  • (d)cut out

  Answer(a) cropped up — a matter that arises without warning is said to crop up. ‘Come out’ would mean it had become known, ‘rushed in’ needs a person entering hurriedly, and ‘cut out’ is about natural aptitude or about stopping.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which one of the following phrasal verbs may be used in the blank space in the sentence, “The truth about the missing register finally ____ (became known)”?

  • (a)came out
  • (b)came about
  • (c)cropped up
  • (d)came across

  Answer(a) came out — the truth that was concealed emerges into view, which is what ‘come out’ describes. ‘Come about’ means to happen, ‘crop up’ means to arise unexpectedly, and ‘come across’ means to meet by chance or to give an impression.