Question

Complete the following sentence with the most appropriate verb given in the bracket.
The United Nations is drawing up an economic plan aimed at ______ East Timor with a economy based on coffee. (Provide)
a) Provide
b) Provides
c) To provide
d) Providing

Answer 1

Hint: Read the given sentence carefully. Try to make out the core meaning of it. Find out the subject, predicate, and object of the given sentence.

Complete answer:
The given sentence requires a participle because the verb phrase is already present in the sentence and is complete: “is drawing up (an economic plan)”.
Now, let us examine all the given options to find out the correct option-
Option ‘a’ - ‘Provide’ is a base verb. It does not fit the sentence in meaning as well as structure. It requires a preposition ‘to’ or a helping verb ‘was, were, is, are, etc.’
Option ‘b’ - ‘Provides’ is a simple present tense verb but here it does not fit into the sentence. The sentence requires a participle and not a verb.
Option ‘c' - ‘To provide’ is not correct because there’s already a preposition ‘at’. They don’t go together as each has a specific meaning.
Option ‘d’ - ‘Providing’ is a present participle that modifies the phrase “East Timor with a stronger ...”. (Participles function as adjectives.)
As we have analyzed all the given options, we can easily figure out the correct answer. Here, the correct word to be filled in is – providing. Hence, option ‘d’ is the correct option.

Note:
 All the other options are plausible distractions. You must align the tense of the options with the tense of the given sentence.