NDA (II) 2016 General Ability Test · Question 2 of 150

Correct — A, 'Being a day of national mourning'. A participle at the head of a sentence must describe the subject of the clause that follows, and the subject here is 'the offices' — which were not a day of national mourning. The phrase needs a subject of its own: 'It being a day of national mourning, the offices were closed…', or, more plainly, 'As it was a day of national mourning, the offices were closed…'.

• (b)the offices were closed — Error-free — a passive verb correctly matched to the plural subject 'the offices'.
• (c)and the national flag flew half mast. — Error-free as printed — 'half mast' is doing adverbial duty after 'flew'. The fuller 'flew at half mast' is the commoner wording and is worth noticing, but the misrelated participle in the first segment is the fault the item is after.
• (d)No error. — The opening participle has nothing to attach to, so the sentence is not error-free.

A participial phrase placed at the front of a sentence attaches itself to whatever subject follows; when there is no suitable subject for it, the participle is left dangling.

Test the opening phrase against the subject that comes next. 'Being a day of national mourning' asks who or what was a day of mourning, and the only candidate on offer is 'the offices'. Formal writing repairs this by giving the participle a subject of its own, which grammars call the absolute construction. Some readers pause instead at 'flew half mast' and expect 'at half mast'; that segment reads as an adverbial and the key leaves it alone.

• A dangling participle is repaired either by giving the phrase its own subject or by rewriting it as a full clause with a conjunction.
• 'It being so, we left' is the absolute construction, standard in formal prose.
• A flag is lowered to half mast as a mark of mourning.

• Accepting the opening phrase because its meaning is clear from the context.
• Marking the flag segment for the missing 'at'.

Asked as an error-spotting item — name the segment that carries the mistake, or mark 'No error.'

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which segment carries the error — (a) Walking down the road / (b) the temple was seen / (c) on the right. / (d) No error

  • (a)Walking down the road
  • (b)the temple was seen
  • (c)on the right.
  • (d)No error

  Answer(a) Walking down the road — the participle must describe the subject, and a temple does not walk; it needs 'Walking down the road, we saw the temple on the right.'

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Choose the correctly written sentence.

  • (a)Being a holiday, the shops were shut.
  • (b)It being a holiday, the shops were shut.
  • (c)Been a holiday, the shops were shut.
  • (d)Being a holiday, shops was shut.

  Answer(b) It being a holiday, the shops were shut — the participle has been given a subject of its own.