The following sentence has been divided into parts. One of them may contain an error. Select the part that contains the error from the given options. If you don’t find any error, mark ‘No error’ as your answer.
Alka had been writing / to her boss until she realises / that he was not interested in
resolving her issues.
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: B
Explanation
The correct answer is option 2 i.e. to her boss until she realises.
Error concept: Tense consistency
What is wrong: The sentence starts in past perfect continuous tense ("Alka had been writing") but then suddenly shifts to present tense ("realises"), which is incorrect.
Grammatical concept: When describing actions that happened in the past, all verbs should stay in the past tense to maintain consistency.
Incorrectness of the concept in context: Using “realises” (present tense) after “had been writing” (past perfect continuous tense) breaks the time sequence.
How to correct: Change “realises” to “realised” to match the past tense used in the rest of the sentence.
Correct phrase/ correction: "until she realised"
Final sentence: Alka had been writing to her boss until she realised that he was not interested in resolving her issues.
Hence, the chosen option is correct.