Psychology did not develop into a science (a) | based of careful observation (b) | and experimentation until the late 1800s. (c) | No error (d)

Correct — B, (b) based of careful observation.

The fault is the preposition. The past participle ‘based’ takes ‘on’ — or, a little more formally, ‘upon’ — and never ‘of’. The segment should read ‘based on careful observation’.

The image behind the word explains the preposition. A base is what something rests on, so whatever is built stands ON its foundation: a film based on a novel, a conclusion based on evidence, a scheme based on contributions from employer and employee. The related noun keeps the same preposition — ‘on the basis of’ is the fixed phrase, and note how ‘of’ appears there but only after ‘basis’, which is very likely the source of the confusion. ‘On the basis of careful observation’ would be correct; ‘based of’ never is.

The segment ‘based on careful observation’ is a reduced relative clause modifying ‘a science’ — a science WHICH IS based on careful observation. With the preposition corrected, the whole sentence reads ‘Psychology did not develop into a science based on careful observation and experimentation until the late 1800s’, which is accurate as a statement of fact as well as correct as English: the discipline is conventionally dated as an experimental science from Wilhelm Wundt’s laboratory at Leipzig in 1879.

This is a preposition item, and preposition items are decided by collocation rather than by logic. There is no rule from which ‘on’ can be deduced. The pairing has to be learnt with the word, which is why the productive way to revise this ground is by families — verbs that take ‘on’, verbs that take ‘of’, verbs that take ‘with’ — rather than by trying to reason each one out.

Why the others are wrong

• (a)Psychology did not develop into a science — There is no error in this part. ‘Did not develop’ is correctly formed: the auxiliary ‘did’ carries the tense and the main verb stays in its base form, so ‘did not develop’ and never ‘did not developed’. The combination ‘develop into’ is also the right one for something changing so as to become something else — a hobby developed into a profession, a dispute developed into a strike — where ‘develop in’ would mean something quite different, and ‘develop as’ something different again. ‘A science’ correctly takes the indefinite article, because the sentence is saying that psychology became one science among many rather than naming a particular one. The negation in this segment belongs to the sentence under test and is not an instruction to the candidate.
• (c)and experimentation until the late 1800s. — This part is correct too. It completes a pair of nouns, ‘careful observation and experimentation’, both governed by the preposition that segment (b) got wrong, and the two nouns are properly parallel — both abstract nouns naming a method. ‘Until’ is the right conjunction after a negative main clause: the ‘not … until’ pattern says that something failed to happen up to a point in time and happened thereafter, as in ‘the report was not published until March’. ‘The late 1800s’ is the standard way of naming the closing decades of a century, and the booklet prints it with a plain lowercase s, no apostrophe. A candidate may hesitate over whether ‘till’ or ‘by’ would be better, but ‘until’ is exactly right, and ‘by’ would reverse the meaning.
• (d)No error — This cannot be the answer, because segment (b) does contain a fault. It is worth being explicit about what that segment is: ‘based of careful observation’ is what the booklet prints, and it is the deliberate error the item is testing, not a slip introduced in transcription. In this block the sentence is supposed to carry a fault somewhere, and reading past an odd phrase as though it were a printing mistake means answering a question the paper did not ask. ‘No error’ is a genuine option elsewhere in this set and deserves to be taken seriously, but it has to be reached by checking each segment against a rule and finding none broken.

Prepositions after verbs, adjectives and participles are collocations: they are fixed by usage, not derived from meaning, and they have to be learnt in groups.

With ON or UPON: based on, depend on, rely on, insist on, comment on, congratulate someone on, impose on, act on, decide on, concentrate on, live on, spend on.

With OF: consist of, accuse someone of, convict of, deprive of, dispose of, approve of, beware of, boast of, complain of an illness, die of a disease, take advantage of, in charge of.

With WITH: comply with, deal with, cope with, quarrel with, part with, agree with a person, acquainted with, popular with, satisfied with.

With TO: refer to, object to, adhere to, subscribe to, succumb to, yield to, prefer one to another, superior to, inferior to, senior to, junior to, prior to, look forward to — and note that in that last one ‘to’ is a preposition, so what follows is an -ing form and not an infinitive.

With FROM: differ from, refrain from, prevent from, prohibit from, abstain from, recover from, borrow from.

With IN: result in, succeed in, persist in, invest in, interfere in, take part in, absorbed in.

Two families are worth separating carefully, because examiners set items on the overlap. ‘Agree’ takes ‘with’ a person, ‘to’ a proposal, and ‘on’ a matter under discussion. ‘Die’ takes ‘of’ a disease, ‘from’ an injury and ‘for’ a cause. ‘Compare’ takes ‘to’ when likening two unlike things and ‘with’ when setting two like things side by side.

And the specific confusion behind this item: the verb form takes ‘on’ while the noun form takes ‘of’ after ‘basis’. A decision based ON the evidence; a decision taken ON THE BASIS OF the evidence. Both are correct, and mixing them produces exactly the phrase printed here.

Key facts

• ‘Based’ takes ‘on’ or ‘upon’, never ‘of’ — a film based on a novel, a claim based on evidence.
• The noun form takes a different preposition: ‘on the basis of’ is the fixed phrase, which is where the wrong ‘based of’ comes from.
• ‘Develop into’ means to change so as to become something else; ‘develop in’ and ‘develop as’ say different things.
• After the auxiliary ‘did’ the main verb stays in its base form — did not develop, never did not developed.
• The ‘not … until’ pattern says that something did not happen up to a stated time and happened after it.
• ‘Based on careful observation’ here is a reduced relative clause — a science which is based on careful observation.
• Verb–preposition families worth memorising together: on (depend, rely, insist, comment, congratulate), of (consist, accuse, deprive, approve, dispose), with (comply, deal, cope, quarrel), to (refer, object, adhere, subscribe, prefer), from (differ, refrain, prevent, abstain), in (result, succeed, persist, interfere).
• In ‘look forward to’ the ‘to’ is a preposition, so it is followed by an -ing form and not by an infinitive.

Common traps

• Marking the sentence ‘No error’ because it reads smoothly. A wrong preposition is quiet, and this one sits in the middle of a long phrase.
• Reading the printed ‘based of’ as a misprint to be mentally corrected instead of as the fault the item is testing.
• Confusing ‘based on’ with ‘on the basis of’, which is the exact route by which ‘based of’ enters a candidate’s writing.
• Suspecting segment (a) because it contains the word ‘not’. The negation belongs to the sentence under test, not to the examiner’s instruction.
• Marking ‘until’ in segment (c) as if a negative main clause needed ‘unless’ or ‘by’. The ‘not … until’ pattern is standard, and ‘by’ would reverse the meaning.
• Trying to reason a preposition out from the meaning of the verb. Collocations are learnt, not deduced.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The establishment failed (a) | to comply to the notice (b) | issued by the Enforcement Officer. (c) | No error (d)

  • (a)The establishment failed
  • (b)to comply to the notice
  • (c)issued by the Enforcement Officer.
  • (d)No error

  Answer(b) to comply to the notice — ‘comply’ takes ‘with’, so the segment should read ‘to comply with the notice’. Part (a) correctly follows ‘failed’ with an infinitive, and part (c) is a correct reduced relative clause, standing for ‘which was issued by the Enforcement Officer’.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The committee’s report was (a) | based upon the evidence (b) | collected during the inspection. (c) | No error (d)

  • (a)The committee’s report was
  • (b)based upon the evidence
  • (c)collected during the inspection.
  • (d)No error

  Answer(d) No error — ‘based upon’ is a correct alternative to ‘based on’ and is simply the more formal of the two. Part (a) is correctly formed with the apostrophe on the singular possessive, and part (c) is a reduced relative clause, ‘which was collected during the inspection’, with the right preposition for a period of time.