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GATE 2022 EE GA Q.1: solution and answer

GATE 2022 · EEGA Q.1 · 1 mark · MCQ

As you grow older, an injury to your _________ may take longer to _________.

  1. (A)

    heel / heel

  2. (B)

    heal / heel

  3. (C)

    heal / heal

  4. (D)

    heel / heal

See the question in the paper
GATE 2022 EE GA question 1Tap to open full size

Answer and solution

ANSWER

The answer is (D) heel / heal: "As you grow older, an injury to your heel may take longer to heal."

Official answer: DSource: Official answer key, GATE 2022 EE (IIT Kharagpur)

  1. Heel and heal are homophones: they sound the same but mean different things. Heel is a noun meaning the back part of the foot. Heal is a verb meaning to become healthy again, or to recover.

  2. First blank: the possessive your must be followed by a noun, and an injury happens to a part of the body. So the word is the noun heel, as in "an injury to your heel". Heal is a verb and cannot follow your. This rules out (B) and (C).

  3. Second blank: here to is the infinitive marker, so the base form of a verb must follow it ("take longer to ______"). The sense is that the injury takes longer to recover, so the word is the verb heal. Heel does not fit after to: as a noun it cannot follow the infinitive marker, and its rare verb senses (a dog walking close behind someone, a ship leaning over) say nothing about an injury getting better. This rules out (A).

  4. The complete sentence is "As you grow older, an injury to your heel may take longer to heal." Only option (D), heel / heal, fits both blanks.

KEY IDEA

This is a homophone pair: work out which part of speech each blank needs. After the possessive your the blank needs a noun (heel, part of the foot). After the infinitive to it needs a verb (heal, to recover).

WATCH OUT FOR

Picking by sound or by the \"healing\" theme of the sentence and choosing (C) heal / heal. Heal is a verb and cannot follow your, which needs a noun. Choosing (B) gets both blanks backwards.

From the GATE 2022 EE paper. Every question of this paper · Download the full paper · All 32 Grammar & vocabulary questions, with notes

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