NDA (II) 2017 GAT Q37: He waved us a by-by as he boarded the train which

Q: What is the answer to NDA (II) 2017 GAT Q37?

A. Correct — A, He waved us a by-by. The parting word is spelt 'bye-bye', a shortened doubling of 'goodbye'. 'By' is a different word altogether — a preposition and adverb meaning beside or past — and it cannot serve as a farewell, so the part as printed is wrong.

NDA (II) 2017 General Ability Test · Question 37 of 150

Question text verified against the official NDA question paper.

He waved us a by-by as he boarded the train which disappeared into the tunnel. No error

(a)He waved us a by-by
(b)as he boarded the train
(c)which disappeared into the tunnel.
(d)No error

Answer

Why

Correct — A, He waved us a by-by. The parting word is spelt 'bye-bye', a shortened doubling of 'goodbye'. 'By' is a different word altogether — a preposition and adverb meaning beside or past — and it cannot serve as a farewell, so the part as printed is wrong.

Why the others are wrong

(b)as he boarded the train — The time clause is correctly formed, and the simple past 'boarded' matches the simple past 'waved' in the first part.
(c)which disappeared into the tunnel. — The relative pronoun 'which' correctly refers to a thing, and 'disappeared into' is the right pairing for movement to the inside of something.
(d)No error — There is a fault, because the farewell in the first part is misspelt.

Concept

An error-detection item can turn on how a word is spelt rather than on the grammar around it.

The farewell has been written in several ways over the years — 'bye-bye', 'bye bye' and simply 'bye' — but 'by-by' is not one of them, and the paper keeps that slip as printed. Sound-alike pairs of this kind are a standing favourite in this section: by and bye, its and it's, principal and principle, stationery and stationary.

Key facts

'Bye-bye' comes from 'goodbye', which is itself a worn-down form of 'God be with ye'.
'By' is a preposition and adverb; 'bye' is the farewell, and in cricket a run scored without the bat touching the ball.
'Disappear into' takes 'into' because the train moves to the inside of the tunnel.

Study next

Words that sound alike but are spelt differentlySpelling faults in error-detection itemsPrepositions of movement such as into and onto

Common traps

Skipping past a misspelt short word because the sentence still sounds right when read aloud.

Asked as an error-detection item where the fault is the spelling of a very ordinary word.

Related PYQs

NDA_GAT_2016_II_Q422016Open & attempt →

I went to the shop to buy some stationeries.

(a) stationery
(b) stationary
(c) stationaries
(d) NO IMPROVEMENT

Answer(a) stationery

Same skill — the fault lies in how the word is written, not in the grammar around it. There the choice runs between the sound-alike pair 'stationery' and 'stationary' and a wrongly pluralised form; here it runs between 'by' and the farewell 'bye-bye'.

Practice

practice — not a real PYQ
Which part contains the error — She could not decide / weather to go by bus / or by train. / No error
- (a)She could not decide
- (b)weather to go by bus
- (c)or by train.
- (d)No error
Answer(b) weather to go by bus — the word wanted is 'whether'.
practice — not a real PYQ
Which part contains the error — The principle of the school / addressed the parents / on the opening day. / No error
- (a)The principle of the school
- (b)addressed the parents
- (c)on the opening day.
- (d)No error
Answer(a) The principle of the school — the head of a school is the 'principal'.