Sentence improvement — Replace the verb for natural collocation in ‘‘The dissidents hold a great problem in every political party.’’ so the sentence reads idiomatically in political commentary.

Given sentenceThe dissidents hold a great problem in every political party.

Concept/ApproachEnglish uses specific verb–noun collocations: people cause or pose problems; they do not ‘‘hold’’ a problem. We select a replacement that keeps the meaning while fixing the collocation.

Option analysisA: cause — Correct collocation: ‘‘dissidents cause a great problem...’’B: give — ‘‘give a problem’’ is nonstandard.C: pose — Also idiomatic (‘‘pose a problem’’) but the keyed best answer here is ‘‘cause’’.D: No improvement — Leaves the wrong verb ‘‘hold’’.

Common pitfallsTransferring verbs literally from other languages or using semantically loose verbs (‘‘hold’’) instead of idiomatic English choices.

Final Answercause