Q&A - PSLE English
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No sooner…than.
I saw this in one of the S&T books. -
Thank you Advancedacademia, JosephineLim73 and Happyh for the inputs.
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JosephineLim73:
I believe it should be (hopefully):AdvancedAcademia:
[quote=\"savoury sweet\"]Appreciate if anyone can help me out with the following S & T from MGS 2012 SA 2.
Thank you.
Hardly had I arrived at the station when the train arrived.
No sooner .................................................................
No sooner had I arrived at the station than the train arrived.
In my opinion, I think it should be:
No sooner had I arrived at the station, the train arrived.[/quote]The two clauses are expressly not independent (the writer is linking the arrival of the train to his arrival at the station with the \"no sooner\"), so I'm afraid that's not correct use of a comma.
It's a contrived, literary sentence. In normal speech you would be more likely to say, \"As soon as I got to (or reached) the station the train arrived.\"
But the construction \"no sooner ... than\" is correct, if increasingly archaic. It actually looks odd to me now. -
Q: If she _______ this was going to happen, she would have reported it to the police immediately.
(1) knew
(2) knows
(3) had known
(4) would know
Should the answer be (1) or (3) please? TIA. -
I guess it is (1)
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notredame:
3 for me.Q: If she _______ this was going to happen, she would have reported it to the police immediately.
(1) knew
(2) knows
(3) had known
(4) would know
Should the answer be (1) or (3) please? TIA.
She didn't know up until some time in the past and then she did know and she certainly knows now. It's past perfect or pluperfect tense. 1) would be perfectly well understood too and is not a glaring error, IMO. -
XXXX:
Thank you A better tomorrow & XXXX for your responses & explanation. DS chose (1) and model answer is (3).
3 for me.notredame:
Q: If she _______ this was going to happen, she would have reported it to the police immediately.
(1) knew
(2) knows
(3) had known
(4) would know
Should the answer be (1) or (3) please? TIA.
She didn't know up until some time in the past and then she did know and she certainly knows now. It's past perfect or pluperfect tense. 1) would be perfectly well understood too and is not a glaring error, IMO. -
Q: More than one pupil (has/have) left the classroom. Model ans: has
Q: More than one of the houses (is/are) for sale. Model ans: are
Are the model answers correct? Please advice. TIA. -
notredame:
yes, they are.Q: More than one pupil (has/have) left the classroom. Model ans: has
Q: More than one of the houses (is/are) for sale. Model ans: are
Are the model answers correct? Please advice. TIA.
When a noun phrase contains [more than one] and [a singular noun], the verb is normally singular: More than one field has been planted with oats.
When [more than one ]is followed by [of and a plural noun], the verb is plural: More than one of the paintings were stolen.
----from the American Heritage Dictionary of English Usage -
Thank you Cloudeedaz for the clarification. Appreciate it.
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