NDA (II) 2018 GAT Q26: We fail to understand your reasons for _____ the college

Q: What is the answer to NDA (II) 2018 GAT Q26?

C. Correct — C, leaving. The trailing phrase 'without completing the degree' tells you the person was already enrolled and then walked away before the course ended, so the blank needs a verb of departure. Only 'reasons for leaving the college' makes the unfinished degree a consequence worth explaining.

NDA (II) 2018 General Ability Test · Question 26 of 146

Question text verified against the official NDA question paper.

We fail to understand your reasons for _____ the college without completing the degree.

(a)attending
(b)joining
(c)leaving
(d)refusing

Answer

Why

Correct — C, leaving. The trailing phrase 'without completing the degree' tells you the person was already enrolled and then walked away before the course ended, so the blank needs a verb of departure. Only 'reasons for leaving the college' makes the unfinished degree a consequence worth explaining.

Why the others are wrong

(a)attending — Attending is what a student does while still enrolled, so it names no single act that could leave a degree unfinished.
(b)joining — Joining happens at the start of a course, before any degree could have been completed, so the trailing phrase has nothing to attach to.
(d)refusing — 'Refuse' takes an offer, a request or an invitation rather than an institution, and anyone who refused the college would never have begun the degree at all.

Concept

A word-choice item in which the phrase 'without completing the degree' fixes the moment being described and therefore fixes the verb.

Each option is a plausible college verb on its own, so the noun decides nothing. The sentence is settled by chronology, because only a departure after enrolment can leave a degree half finished.

Key facts

'Leave' takes a plain object, as in 'leave school' or 'leave the job', so no preposition is needed before 'the college'.
After the preposition 'for', an English verb appears in its -ing form, which is why every option is printed that way.

Study next

Gerunds after prepositionsVerbs of joining, staying and leavingReading the time clue in a sentence before choosing a word

Common traps

Picking a word that fits the noun 'college' without checking whether it fits the rest of the sentence.

Asked as a fill-in-the-blank item where an accompanying phrase, not the noun, decides which verb is possible.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

Practice

practice — not a real PYQ
Choose the word that fits — We could not understand her reasons for _____ the job barely a month after she was hired.
- (a)resuming
- (b)quitting
- (c)seeking
- (d)earning
Answer(b) quitting — 'barely a month after she was hired' fixes the moment as a departure.
practice — not a real PYQ
Choose the word that fits — He gave no reason for _____ the meeting before the vote was taken.
- (a)attending
- (b)arranging
- (c)leaving
- (d)chairing
Answer(c) leaving — 'before the vote was taken' marks an early exit.