Select the most appropriate option that can substitute the underlined segment in the given sentence. Even if you’ve never heard his name, you’ve probably met someone with his words tattooed in their skin or heard them sung at a music concert.

Correct — A. A tattoo marks a surface, and English puts marks on surfaces: written on paper, printed on a page, tattooed on their skin — option (a).

The preposition is fixed by the noun that follows it. Skin is a surface, not a container, so 'in their skin' misdescribes where the words sit.

Nothing else in the segment changes across the four choices — the whole mark turns on that one preposition.

Why the others are wrong

• (b)
  tattooed through their skin — Through means from one side out the other, which is what a needle or a splinter does. The finished tattoo is still described as being on the skin, so 'through' misreads the geometry.
• (c)
  tattooed until their skin — Until is a preposition of time — until Friday, until the rain stopped. A body part cannot follow it, so the phrase breaks before the meaning is even considered.
• (d)
  tattooed overdoing their skin — Overdoing is a verb form, not a preposition, so 'tattooed overdoing their skin' leaves no grammatical slot for it. Two verb forms cannot sit side by side with no linking word.

English divides place prepositions by shape. On marks a surface: on the wall, on the table, on your arm. In marks an enclosure: in the box, in the water, in a drawer.

Collocations follow that logic — words are written on, printed on, painted on and tattooed on things.

Sentence-improvement items exploit it by holding the whole segment steady and moving one preposition. Once you see that the four options differ by a single word, read only that word.

Key facts

• On marks a surface: on the wall, on paper, on your arm.
• In marks an enclosure: in the box, in the water.
• Until is a preposition of time and cannot take a place or a body part.

Common traps

• Reading the long sentence for sense and missing that only the preposition is on trial.
• Choosing through because tattoo ink goes below the surface.
• Treating overdoing as a possible verb-plus-preposition pattern.

No directly related past PYQ was found.