The thieves denied ______
- (a)having stealing the money.
- (b)stealing the money.
- (c)had stolen the money.
- (d)having to steal the money.
Answer
B
Why
Correct — B, stealing the money. The verb 'deny' is followed by a gerund, the -ing form, so 'denied stealing' is correct. 'Having stealing' is ungrammatical, 'had stolen' cannot follow 'denied' directly, and 'having to steal' changes the meaning to being forced to steal.
Why the others are wrong
- (a)having stealing the money. — Pairing 'having' with the -ing 'stealing' is ungrammatical; the perfect gerund would be 'having stolen', not 'having stealing'.
- (c)had stolen the money. — A finite past-perfect clause cannot follow 'denied' directly; it would need a linking 'that' ('denied that they had stolen').
- (d)having to steal the money. — 'Having to steal' means being obliged to steal, which changes the meaning from denying the theft itself.
Concept
A verb-pattern item on 'deny' followed by a gerund (-ing form).
Related PYQs
No directly related past PYQ was found.
Practice
- practice — not a real PYQ
She admitted ______ the vase.
- (a)to break
- (b)breaking
- (c)had broken
- (d)having to break
Answer(b) breaking — 'admit', like 'deny', takes a gerund.
- practice — not a real PYQ
He denied ______ the message.
- (a)to send
- (b)sending
- (c)had sent
- (d)having to send
Answer(b) sending — 'deny' is followed by the -ing form.