Question

Select the word / words that have to be removed / replaced in order to make the sentence grammatically correct.

The tiles were secure fastened and so very few of them were dislodged when the shuttle re-entered the earth's atmosphere.

• A. tiles
• B. secure fastened
• C. shuttle re-entered
• D. atmosphere

Hint:

Check whether the word before "fastened" should be an adverb instead of an adjective.

Answer 1

The Correct Option is B

The sentence uses "secure fastened" to describe how the tiles were attached. We need to check whether every word is doing the correct grammatical job.

1. tiles: This is the subject of the sentence and is a plain, correctly used noun. Nothing is wrong here.
2. secure fastened: "Fastened" is a past participle acting as a verb here, describing how the tiles were attached. A verb like "fastened" needs to be modified by an adverb, not an adjective. "Secure" is an adjective, so it cannot correctly modify "fastened". The word should be the adverb "securely".
3. shuttle re-entered: This is a correct subject-verb pair describing the shuttle going back into the atmosphere. No error here.
4. atmosphere: This is a plain noun used correctly as the object of "re-entered". No error here.

The error lies only in "secure fastened", which should read "securely fastened" to correctly modify the verb "fastened".

Let's summarize:

• Adjectives modify nouns, adverbs modify verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs.
• "Fastened" is a verb form here, so it needs the adverb "securely", not the adjective "secure".

So the phrase that has to be replaced is "secure fastened", which makes option (b) the correct answer.