Can you identify the grammatically incorrect sentence from each set?

Question

Option 1: The movie starts at 7 pm, so we leave at 6.

Option 2: She had been working on the report all night.

Option 3: No sooner had he opened the door than it slammed shut.

Option 4: By next month, they'll have been married for 25 years.

AfterBoards · Accepted Answer

**Option 1** → "The movie starts at 7 pm, so we leave at 6." — The first part is fine because scheduled events (like movie timings) can use simple present tense. However, the second part ("we leave at 6") is a personal decision about the future, not a fixed schedule. It needs a helping word like *should*, *will*, or *need to*. A correct version: *"The movie starts at 7 pm, so we should leave at 6."* ❌ **Option 2** → "She had been working on the report all night." — Correctly uses the past perfect continuous tense (*had been + working*) to show an action ongoing before another point in the past. ✅ **Option 3** → "No sooner had he opened the door than it slammed shut." — Correctly uses the *"No sooner… than…"* structure with inverted word order (*had he* instead of *he had*) to describe two events happening one right after the other. ✅ **Option 4** → "By next month, they'll have been married for 25 years." — Correctly uses the future perfect tense (*will have been*) to describe something that will be completed by a specific future time. ✅ Hence, **Option 1** is the grammatically incorrect sentence because the second part expresses a personal future plan, not a fixed schedule, and needs a modal verb like *should* or *will*.

BMSAT Kozhikode (VA) PYQs

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