In the following passage, some words have been deleted. Read the passage carefully and select the most appropriate option to fill in each blank. Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav is an (1) _________ by the Government of India to celebrate and remember 75 years of independence and the beautiful history of its people, culture and achievements. This Mahotsav is (2) _________ to the people of India, who have not only been instrumental in bringing India this far in its evolutionary journey but also (3) _________ the power and potential to realise Prime Minister, Narendra Modi's (4) _________ of activating India 2.0, fuelled by the spirit of Aatmanirbhar Bharat. The formal journey of Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav began on 12 March 2021, beginning a (5)______ to our 75th anniversary of independence and will finish a year later on 15 August 2023.
Select the most appropriate answer for blank number 3.%
- (a)concludes
- (b)possess
- (c)clarifies
- (d)obtains
Answer
Why
Correct — B. The subject of the blank is who, standing for the people of India, so the verb has to be plural.
Possess is the plural present form. Concludes, clarifies and obtains all carry the third-person singular -s and cannot follow that who.
The correlative not only ... but also then joins two statements about the same people: they have been instrumental, and they possess the power and potential — option (b).
Why the others are wrong
- (a)concludes — The -s marks a singular subject, but who here stands for the people of India. Conclude also means to bring to an end, and nobody concludes power.
- (c)clarifies — The same -s clash with a plural who. Clarify means to make something clear, which is not what a country's people do to power and potential.
- (d)obtains — Obtains is singular in form and wrong in time. The sentence credits people who already hold the power, not people who are acquiring it.
Concept
Two grammar points meet in this blank, and between them they leave one option standing without any appeal to meaning.
Agreement in a relative clause: the verb after who agrees with the noun who refers back to, which here is the people of India, not the nearer singular nouns.
Correlative parallelism: not only ... but also joins like with like, and the first limb states what these people have done, so the second states something more about them.
Three or four words stand between who and the blank, which is exactly the distance that makes an -s form feel right to the ear. Find the noun who replaces before choosing.
Key facts
- A verb after the relative pronoun who agrees with the noun who refers to, not with the nearest noun.
- Possess is the plural present form and possesses the singular.
- Not only ... but also must join grammatically parallel elements.
Study next
Common traps
- Letting a nearer singular noun such as India pull the verb into the -s form.
- Weighing meanings when three options are already ruled out by agreement.
- Taking power and potential to be the subject of the blank rather than its object.
Agreement inside a relative clause is tested outside the cloze too — English Q.12 of this paper keys who work as the error segment, where who stands for a singular he.
Related PYQs
No directly related past PYQ was found.