Difficulty: Medium
Correct Answer: car front of the house and
Explanation:
Introduction / Context:
This error spotting question examines your knowledge of common prepositional phrases used to describe location. The sentence describes where the car was parked in relation to the house. The standard expression in English is "in front of the house", but the sentence omits an essential word, making the phrase incorrect. Your task is to identify the segment where this error occurs.
Given Data / Assumptions:
Concept / Approach:
English uses a fixed prepositional phrase "in front of" to indicate a position directly before something. You cannot omit the preposition "in" and say "car front of the house"; that is ungrammatical. The correct description should be "He parked the car in front of the house." Thus, the error is in the second segment, where "in" is missing before "front". The rest of the sentence is structurally correct and sounds natural once this phrase is fixed.
Step-by-Step Solution:
Step 1: Read the sentence aloud: "He parked the car front of the house and headed down the street."Step 2: Notice that "car front of the house" sounds incomplete; something seems to be missing before "front".Step 3: Recall the standard phrase "in front of the house". This immediately reveals that the preposition "in" has been omitted.Step 4: Assign the error to the segment that contains this phrase, which is part 2: "car front of the house and".Step 5: Rewrite the sentence correctly: "He parked the car in front of the house and headed down the street." Now the sentence is idiomatic and fully grammatical.
Verification / Alternative check:
Check each part separately. Part 1, "He parked the", is a correct beginning of a transitive verb phrase. Part 3, "headed down the street.", is a correct and complete clause describing subsequent action. Only part 2 contains the incorrect phrase. You can also compare with other familiar expressions like "in front of the shop", "in front of the school", where "in front of" always stays together. This confirms that the missing word "in" is a genuine grammatical mistake and not a stylistic choice.
Why Other Options Are Wrong:
Option A, "He parked the", correctly sets up the object "car" and does not contain any error. Option C, "headed down the street.", is a standard expression for walking or moving along a street and is grammatically sound. Option D, "No Error", cannot be correct because we have clearly found a missing preposition in part 2. Therefore, only option B, which contains "car front of the house and", is incorrect.
Common Pitfalls:
Because "in front of" is such a familiar phrase, some learners read it automatically even when a word is missing and therefore fail to notice the error. Others might be unsure whether "in" is compulsory and may think "front of the house" is acceptable, especially if influenced by casual speech. For exam purposes and standard written English, always use the full phrase "in front of" when describing position directly before something.
Final Answer:
The incorrect part is "car front of the house and" in segment 2, which should be "car in front of the house and".
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