Choose the most suitable option to replace the highlighted part of the sentence: The man died by a heart attack.

Correct — B. The trigger is the preposition after died. English links die to the illness or condition that caused the death with of: died of a heart attack, died of fever.

By does not introduce an illness, so died by has to change. The verb itself is right, simple past died, so the fix is the preposition alone: died of, option (b).

Why the others are wrong

• (a)
  is died with — Is died is not English: die is intransitive, so it has no passive, and is puts a past event in the present. With does not name a cause of death either.
• (c)
  was died due to — Was died repeats the fault: die is intransitive and has no passive form, so no preposition after it can rescue the phrase.
• (d)
  dead from — Dead is an adjective, not a verb. The man dead from a heart attack is left with no finite verb, so it is not a sentence.

Two things are tested at once.

First, the fixed preposition. Die of names the illness or condition (died of cancer). Die from is also standard, especially for an injury or outside cause (died from his wounds).

Second, die is intransitive: it takes no object, so it has no passive. Is died and was died are never correct. For the state, English uses the adjective: the man is dead.

Key facts

• Die of + an illness or condition: died of a heart attack, died of fever.
• Die from is also standard, especially for an injury: died from his wounds.
• Die is intransitive, so it has no passive: is died and was died are ungrammatical.
• Dead is the adjective (he is dead), while died is the past tense of the verb.

Common traps

• Choosing was died due to because due to sounds formal, without noticing that die cannot be made passive.
• Treating dead and died as interchangeable.

No directly related past PYQ was found.