They had promised to delivered (a) / the bags before mid-March (b) / to enable us to inaugurate the shop. (c) / No error (d)

Q: What is the answer to NDA (II) 2023 GAT Q20?

A. Correct — A, 'They had promised to delivered'. The infinitive marker 'to' must be followed by the base form of the verb, so the segment should read 'They had promised to deliver'. A past-tense form cannot stand after 'to' here — the pastness of the whole sentence is already carried by 'had promised'.

(a)They had promised to delivered
(b)the bags before mid-March
(c)to enable us to inaugurate the shop.
(d)No error

Answer

Why

Correct — A, 'They had promised to delivered'. The infinitive marker 'to' must be followed by the base form of the verb, so the segment should read 'They had promised to deliver'. A past-tense form cannot stand after 'to' here — the pastness of the whole sentence is already carried by 'had promised'.

Why the others are wrong

(b)
the bags before mid-March — Clean. A plain object with a time phrase; 'before mid-March' is correctly built and correctly placed.
(c)
to enable us to inaugurate the shop. — Clean. 'Enable' takes an object followed by a to-infinitive, and 'inaugurate' is in the base form that the pattern needs.
(d)
No error — Segment (a) prints 'to delivered' where the infinitive calls for 'to deliver', so 'No error' cannot be the answer.

Concept

After the infinitive marker 'to', English uses the base form of the verb — 'to deliver', never 'to delivered' or 'to delivering' in this pattern. The infinitive itself carries no tense.

This paper works the same rule twice: an earlier sentence in the set prints 'to prayed' after the same infinitive marker, so a candidate who catches one should be primed for the other. Segment (c) shows the rule kept correctly with 'to enable us to inaugurate', which makes the contrast within the same sentence a useful check.

Key facts

The infinitive after 'to' never carries tense; time is shown by the main verb, here 'had promised'.
'Enable' follows the pattern enable + object + to + base verb, which segment (c) uses correctly.

Study next

Base form of the verb after the infinitive markerVerbs that take a to-infinitive complement, such as promise, agree and enableWhere tense is carried in a sentence with two verbsFrequent verb-form slips in spotting-error sets

Common traps

Skimming past the opening segment because 'They had promised' sounds right on its own.
Hunting for the error in the longest segment.

Asked as a spotting-errors item where a tensed verb form has been printed after 'to' in place of the base form.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

Practice

practice — not a real PYQ
Spot the error. The contractor had agreed to completed (a) / the boundary wall before the rains (b) / so that the school could reopen on time. (c) / No error (d)
- (a)The contractor had agreed to completed
- (b)the boundary wall before the rains
- (c)so that the school could reopen on time.
- (d)No error
Answer(a) The contractor had agreed to completed — the infinitive needs 'to complete'.
practice — not a real PYQ
Fill in the blank. The committee has promised __________ the report by Friday.
- (a)to submitted
- (b)to submit
- (c)to submitting
- (d)submitted
Answer(b) to submit — the base form follows the infinitive marker.

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