A company of five thousand soldiers, having marched tirelessly for over five days, have just moved into their cantonment.
- (a)A company of five thousand soldiers,
- (b)having marched tirelessly for over five days,
- (c)have just moved into their cantonment.
- (d)No error
Correct — C, 'have just moved into their cantonment.' The head of the subject is the singular collective noun 'A company', so it needs the singular verb 'has' and the singular pronoun 'its' — 'A company … has just moved into its cantonment.' The plural 'have … their' breaks that agreement, making segment (c) the error.
- (a)A company of five thousand soldiers, — Error-free — a correctly formed singular subject ('A company … of soldiers'); the fault lies in the verb and pronoun that follow, not here.
- (b)having marched tirelessly for over five days, — Error-free — a correctly formed participial phrase modifying the subject, with no agreement problem.
- (d)No error — There is an error — the plural 'have … their' fails to agree with the singular 'A company' — so 'No error' is not the answer.
This is an error-spotting item on subject-verb agreement — the collective noun 'a company' is singular and must take a singular verb ('has') and singular pronoun ('its').
No directly related past PYQ was found.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Spot the error: (a) The herd of cattle / (b) were grazing / (c) quietly in the field. / (d) No error
- (a)The herd of cattle
- (b)were grazing
- (c)quietly in the field.
- (d)No error
Answer(b) were grazing — 'herd' is a singular collective noun, so it needs 'was grazing'.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Choose the correct option: The board of directors ___ announced its decision.
- (a)have
- (b)has
- (c)were
- (d)are
Answer(b) has — 'the board' acts as a single unit, taking the singular 'has' to match the singular 'its'.