Question

Correct the sentence at the underlined point.
The little girl listened to her mother tell a story. At the end, she fell asleep.
A) NO CHANGE
B) The little girl
C) The person
D) Those

Answer 1

Hint: Noun is a word that refers to a thing, a person, an animal, place, quality, an idea or an action. For example: cake, school bus, shoes, justice, softness, India, London etc. Here, she has to be replaced with a noun to indicate who is sleeping.

Complete answer:
As we know that we have to use a noun to replace the underlined word ‘she’ in the sentence. Noun can be used as a subject of the sentence, direct and indirect object of the sentence and sometimes it can be used as the object of a preposition.
Option A) NO CHANGE – this is an incorrect answer because to fill the underlined word with the correct answer we have to use a noun that can meaningfully replace the underlined word ‘she’ in the sentence. However, this option is invalid option because it requires changes. Therefore, this is an incorrect answer.

Option B) The little girl – Little girl can be clearly understood that this is a common noun as it refers to a person but not by her specific name. Common nouns refer to the generic things, not the specific things. However, ‘she’ can be meaningfully replaced by this option. Here, the use of ‘she’ is in generic form so we will be using the ‘little girl – common noun’. Therefore, this is the correct answer and the use of this option in the sentence will make the sentence grammatically correct.

Option C) The person – The person is grammatically incorrect if used in the sentence because in the first clause ‘The little girl listened to her mother tell a story ‘It is clearly mentioned that it is talking about the little girl. So, in the second clause of the sentence we cannot use ‘the person’ it will change the entire meaning of the complete sentence. Therefore, this is an incorrect answer.

Option D) Those – Those are used in those cases where it is referring to people or things, situations or experiences that are more distant in terms of time or distance. However, the use of those in place of ‘her’ will make the sentence vague and ‘those’ are used for the plural things, persons or objects and however, she is singular not plural so we cannot use ‘those’ in the sentence. Therefore, this is an incorrect answer.

Therefore the correct answer is option ‘B’. The little girl listened to her mother tell a story. At the end, the little girl fell asleep.


Note: Noun verb agreements play an important role in understanding the correct usage of nouns. Noun verb agreement is an important concept in grammar and a source of many writing errors. Nouns must agree with their verbs in such a way that singular nouns require singular verbs and plural nouns require plural verbs. That is the reason Option B is the most appropriate option as compared to any other option because ‘she’ is singular and be meaningfully replaced by the ‘the little girl’.