Question

He promised to ______ the discrepancies in the ledger before the auditors arrived.

• A. iron out
• B. clear off
• C. gloss over
• D. wipe out

Hint:

To easily remember this phrase, visualize a clothes iron flattening out messy wrinkles. In business and conversational English, whenever you are "smoothing out flaws," "settling an argument," or "fixing errors in a document," you are simply ironing them out!

Answer 1

The Correct Option is A

Step 1: Understanding the Concept:
This question tests the contextual use of phrasal verbs. Phrasal verbs combine a basic verb with a preposition or adverb to form a completely new idiomatic meaning. In a professional accounting or business context, resolving, straightening out, or fixing inconsistencies and errors requires an idiom that means "to resolve difficulties or settle details."

Step 2: Detailed Explanation:
Let's analyze the precise meanings of all the phrasal choices: iron out (Correct): To resolve, smooth over, or eliminate minor problems, errors, or inconsistencies. Just like an iron smooths out wrinkles in clothing, to "iron out discrepancies" means to settle and correct the bookkeeping errors before an audit review. clear off: To remove items from a surface, or to run away/leave a place quickly. It does not fit the context of fixing financial data. gloss over: To deliberately ignore, conceal, or downplay a mistake or fault rather than fixing it properly. Doing this to ledger discrepancies before auditors arrive would be fraudulent, making it contextually inappropriate for an honest task. wipe out: To completely destroy, erase, or eliminate something (e.g., wiping out a debt or wiping out a population). It is too extreme and improper for resolving specific accounting data rows.

Step 3: Final Answer:
The correct phrasal verb to complete the sentence is "iron out" (Option a).