NDA (II) 2018 GAT Q4: Slow and steady owns the race, as the wise would say. No

Q: What is the answer to NDA (II) 2018 GAT Q4?

B. Correct — B, 'owns the race,'. The proverb runs 'Slow and steady wins the race' — steady effort carries off the prize. 'Owns' cannot stand in for 'wins' here: a race is something you win, not something you own, and the one substituted verb is the whole of the mistake.

NDA (II) 2018 General Ability Test · Question 4 of 146

Question text verified against the official NDA question paper.

Slow and steady owns the race, as the wise would say. No error

(a)Slow and steady
(b)owns the race,
(c)as the wise would say.
(d)No error

Answer

Why

Correct — B, 'owns the race,'. The proverb runs 'Slow and steady wins the race' — steady effort carries off the prize. 'Owns' cannot stand in for 'wins' here: a race is something you win, not something you own, and the one substituted verb is the whole of the mistake.

Why the others are wrong

(a)Slow and steady — Error-free — this is the proverb's own subject, a pair of adjectives working together as a noun phrase.
(c)as the wise would say. — Error-free — 'the wise' is an adjective used as a plural noun for wise people, and 'would say' fits a general habit.
(d)No error — The proverb's verb has been changed, so the sentence does carry an error.

Concept

Proverbs are fixed strings of words. Change one word inside a proverb and you have created exactly the kind of error an exam item is built on.

The saying goes back to the fable of the tortoise and the hare, and it is set in English as 'Slow and steady wins the race'. The booklet prints 'owns', and once you hear the proverb in your head the substitution is obvious. That is the whole skill here — read the printed words rather than the remembered ones, because a familiar phrase is the easiest thing in a paper to skim past.

Key facts

'Slow and steady wins the race' takes a singular verb, the pair being treated as one idea.
'The wise', 'the rich', 'the poor' and 'the brave' are adjectives used with 'the' to mean whole classes of people.
English wins a race, a prize or a match; 'own' belongs with property.

Study next

Common English proverbs and their fixed wordingAdjectives used as nouns — the rich, the brave, the wiseVerbs that go with 'race', 'prize' and 'match'Error-spotting items built on an altered idiom

Common traps

Reading a familiar proverb from memory and not from the page.
Looking for a grammar rule when the fault is a swapped word.

Asked as an error-spotting item built on a proverb with one word changed.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

Practice

practice — not a real PYQ
Complete the proverb — A rolling stone gathers no ______.
- (a)moss
- (b)dust
- (c)grass
- (d)water
Answer(a) moss — the proverb is 'A rolling stone gathers no moss'.
practice — not a real PYQ
Which version of the proverb is the correct one?
- (a)Slow and steady owns the race.
- (b)Slow and steady wins the race.
- (c)Slow and steady runs the race.
- (d)Slow and steady takes the race.
Answer(b) Slow and steady wins the race — that is the fixed wording.