Select the most appropriate option that can substitute the underlined segment in the given sentence. The team always anticipate a bowling friendly pitch on their easy victory in the T20 matches.
- (a)pitch over their easy victory
- (b)pitch to their easy victory
- (c)pitch for their easy victory
- (d)pitch of their easy victory
Answer
Why
Correct — C. The segment has to join the pitch to the result the team want out of it, and English marks purpose or intended benefit with for.
Read it back: the team anticipate a bowling friendly pitch for their easy victory — a pitch that will serve the win they expect.
The printed on fails because a victory is neither a surface nor a topic, and over, to and of each mark some other relation. Option (c) is the substitution that leaves the sentence saying what it means.
Why the others are wrong
- (a)pitch over their easy victory — Over marks superiority or a dispute — a victory over rivals, an argument over money. A pitch cannot stand over a victory.
- (b)pitch to their easy victory — To points at a destination or a recipient. A noun takes it when the noun names a route or a means — the road to victory, the key to success — but a pitch is a surface, so pitch to their easy victory has no reading.
- (d)pitch of their easy victory — Of makes the victory a property of the pitch, like the edge of the pitch. The victory belongs to the team, not to the ground.
Concept
A substitution item of this shape turns on one word, and here that word is the preposition.
Decide what relation the sentence needs before testing the options. The pitch is wanted because of what it will produce, and that relation is purpose.
After a noun, English marks purpose with for — a room for guests, a pitch for victory — and after a verb with an infinitive: a pitch to win.
Some nouns do take to, as in the road to victory or the key to success, but only where the noun itself names a route or a means towards the goal. A pitch is a surface, so pitch to victory has no reading.
The sentence has faults the item does not test. The team always anticipate uses the plural verb that British usage allows with a collective noun, and bowling friendly would normally be hyphenated.
Only the underlined segment is in play, and across the four options only the preposition changes.
Key facts
- For marks purpose or intended benefit after a noun, as in a room for guests.
- Over marks superiority or the subject of a dispute, as in a victory over rivals.
- Of marks possession or a property, as in the edge of the pitch.
Study next
Common traps
- Rewriting the sentence in your head and marking whichever option then sounds least odd
- Choosing over because victory over is a familiar pairing elsewhere
Here SSC keeps the four options nearly identical, so the difference is a single word and the option has to be read back into the sentence rather than judged on its own.
The same format runs at English Q.17 of this 13 Sep 2024, 09:00 paper, where the choice is between grateful and the misspelt greatful.
Related PYQs
No directly related past PYQ was found.