NDA (II) 2022 GAT Q35: Amit told to Divya (a) / that he would come (b) / with a

Q: What is the answer to NDA (II) 2022 GAT Q35?

A. Correct — A, 'Amit told to Divya'. The verb 'tell' takes its listener as a direct object, with no preposition in between, so the segment should read 'Amit told Divya'. The 'to' belongs with 'say' — 'Amit said to Divya' — and cannot be carried across to 'tell'.

NDA (II) 2022 General Ability Test · Question 35 of 150

Question text verified against the official NDA question paper.

Amit told to Divya (a) / that he would come (b) / with a reward for her. (c)

(a)(a)
(b)(b)
(c)(c)
(d)No error

Answer

Why

Correct — A, 'Amit told to Divya'. The verb 'tell' takes its listener as a direct object, with no preposition in between, so the segment should read 'Amit told Divya'. The 'to' belongs with 'say' — 'Amit said to Divya' — and cannot be carried across to 'tell'.

Why the others are wrong

(b)that he would come — Error-free — after the past-tense reporting verb 'told', the reported clause correctly shifts 'will come' back to 'would come'.
(c)with a reward for her. — Error-free — a well-formed prepositional phrase, and 'her' points back to Divya without ambiguity.
(d)No error — There is an error — 'told' cannot be followed by 'to' before the listener — so 'No error' is not the answer.

Concept

An error-spotting item on reporting verbs. 'Tell' is used with the listener as its object ('tell someone something'), while 'say' needs 'to' before the listener ('say something to someone').

The trap works because 'said to' is so familiar that the 'to' gets carried over to 'tell'. Test any sentence by swapping the verb — 'He said to me' is right and 'He told to me' is not; 'He told me' is right and 'He said me' is not.

Key facts

'Tell' is followed straight by the person: tell me, tell her, tell the class.
'Say' needs 'to' before the person: say it to me, say a few words to the class.
A past reporting verb pushes 'will' back to 'would' in the reported clause.

Study next

reported speech and the backshift of tensesthe difference between say, tell, speak and talkverbs that take two objects — give, offer, send, tellerror-spotting on prepositions after common verbs

Common traps

Adding 'to' after 'told' by analogy with 'said to'.
Suspecting segment (b) of a tense error when the backshift to 'would come' is exactly right.

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

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

Practice

practice — not a real PYQ
Spot the error: (a) The teacher told to the students / (b) that the test / (c) had been postponed. / (d) No error
- (a)(a)
- (b)(b)
- (c)(c)
- (d)No error
Answer(a) The teacher told to the students — 'tell' takes the listener directly, so it must read 'told the students'.
practice — not a real PYQ
Fill in the blank: The guide ___ us that the museum closes at five.
- (a)said
- (b)told
- (c)said to
- (d)spoke
Answer(b) told — 'tell' takes the listener as its object ('told us'); 'said' would have needed 'to us'.