Question

Instructions: A sentence has been broken into four parts. Choose the part that has an error.

(a) The house was silent when we got back,
(b) save for some poor creature who was
(c) screaming away in one of the distant ward,
(d) and a low, moaning sound from Vinod's room.

• A. a
• B. b
• C. c
• D. d

Hint:

'One of the' is always followed by a plural noun, check 'ward' against this rule.

Answer 1

The Correct Option is C

A different way to catch this is to isolate every "one of the..." type phrase across the sentence and apply the plural rule as a checklist, rather than reading part by part for general fluency.

1. Scan the four parts specifically for quantity phrases: "some poor creature" in (b) is a singular, indefinite noun phrase, which is fine on its own since it is not preceded by "one of the." "One of the distant ward" in (c) is flagged immediately as a "one of the" construction.
2. Apply the rule: any noun following "one of the [adjective]" must take the plural "-s" form, because logically you are describing one member selected from a set of multiple similar things, here, multiple wards in a house or building. "Ward" without the "-s" breaks this rule.
3. Double check there isn't a competing error elsewhere: (a) has no quantity phrase, (d) has "Vinod's room," a singular possessive that is correctly singular since only one room is being referred to, there's no "one of" construction attached to it, so no plural is needed there.

This checklist approach isolates the singular/plural mismatch to part (c) alone, confirming option C as the answer.

Let's summarize:

• Build a habit of flagging every "one of the" phrase in a sentence and verifying the noun that follows is plural, this single check resolves a large share of these error-spotting questions.
• Don't confuse this with singular possessive nouns like "Vinod's room," which are correct as singular since they refer to one specific, named thing.

Keeping a mental checklist of common grammar traps like this one speeds up error-spotting sections considerably.