Question

'The team more than 300 runs in 20 overs rains. However, some players needed to improve their batting skills.'

Choose the option with the correct sequence of words to fill the blanks.

• A. score; despite
• B. scoring; instead of
• C. scored; despite
• D. scoring; in spite of

Hint:

Check subject-verb tense agreement first, then pick the preposition that means "although" rather than "instead of."

Answer 1

The Correct Option is C

This question checks two things at once: whether you can spot a broken verb form, and whether you know the difference between "despite" and "instead of." Read the full sentence pair before picking a blank filler.

1. score; despite: "Score" is present tense, but the second sentence ("some players needed to improve") is past tense, so the story is being told in the past. A present-tense verb here breaks that timeline, even though "despite" is the right link word.
2. scoring; instead of: "Scoring" alone cannot be the main verb of the sentence, it needs a helper verb like "was" in front of it. On top of that, "instead of" means "in place of," which would wrongly say the team scored runs in place of rain.
3. scored; despite: "Scored" matches the past-tense story, and "despite" correctly shows that the team scored well even though it was raining. Both blanks work together with no grammar break.
4. scoring; in spite of: "In spite of" carries the same meaning as "despite" and would work on its own, but "scoring" still cannot stand alone as the sentence's main verb, so this option fails for the same reason as option (B).

The correct choice is "scored; despite," since it keeps the verb tense consistent with the rest of the passage and uses the link word that means "although," not "in place of."

Let's summarize:

• A present participle like "scoring" needs a helper verb ("was scoring") to work as a main verb; alone, it cannot finish a sentence.
• "Despite" and "in spite of" both mean "although," but "instead of" means "in place of" and does not fit a team playing through rain.

So the full, correct sentence reads: "The team scored more than 300 runs in 20 overs despite rains."