In the sentence “The ban is applied by the district’s commercial taxes department after protests by a community, which had threat to burn theatres screening the controversial movie”, which option best replaces the phrase “had threat to burn” so that the sentence becomes grammatically correct and natural?

Introduction / Context:
This question is about error spotting and correction in a sentence describing a ban imposed after protests. The key phrase “had threat to burn” is grammatically awkward and unidiomatic. You must choose the option that expresses the correct tense and structure while retaining the original meaning that the community issued a threat in the past. Such questions test your command over verb forms, participles and standard English collocations used in news and formal writing.

Given Data / Assumptions:
1) The context is a past situation where a community issued a threat to burn theatres.2) The original phrase “had threat to burn” is incorrect and must be replaced.3) Options include phrasal variations: had threated to burn, had threatened to burn, had threatened to burning and had threats of burning.4) The rest of the sentence should remain the same, so the replacement must fit both grammatically and logically.

Concept / Approach:
The correct structure in English for expressing that someone issued a threat in the past is “had threatened to do something”, with the past perfect of the verb threaten followed by the infinitive to plus base verb. The noun threat rarely appears directly after had without an article or other supporting structure. Therefore, you look for an option that uses the correct past participle threatened and the infinitive to burn, forming a natural passive cause for the imposition of the ban.

Step-by-Step Solution:
1) Recognise that “had threat to burn” is intended to convey that the community previously threatened to burn theatres.2) The verb form of threat is threaten, and its past participle is threatened.3) In standard narrative, the pattern is “had threatened to burn”, where had is an auxiliary forming the past perfect, threatened is the past participle, and to burn is the infinitive describing the action threatened.4) Check option “had threated to burn”. The word threated is incorrect; the correct past form is threatened, not threated.5) Option “had threatened to burn” uses the correct participle and the correct infinitive to burn, matching the standard expression.6) Option “had threatened to burning” is wrong because threatened normally takes an infinitive, not a gerund, so to burning is ungrammatical here.7) Option “had threats of burning” uses the noun threats and changes the structure; it could be made grammatical with additional words but is still less natural and does not match the concise verb based style preferred in exam sentences.

Verification / Alternative check:
Insert each option into the full sentence and read it aloud for clarity. “Which had threatened to burn theatres” sounds smooth and is consistent with normal journalistic language. “Which had threated to burn theatres” is wrong due to the incorrect verb form. “Which had threatened to burning theatres” sounds awkward and is not standard usage. “Which had threats of burning theatres” is clumsy and requires further rephrasing, such as “had issued threats of burning theatres,” which is not what the option provides. Hence, “had threatened to burn” stands out as the only fully correct and idiomatic replacement.

Why Other Options Are Wrong:
“had threated to burn” uses a nonstandard past form threated instead of the correct threatened.“had threatened to burning” misuses the gerund burning after to, creating an incorrect verb pattern.“had threats of burning” changes the structure in a way that still feels incomplete in the given sentence and does not align with the intended concise wording.None of these is incorrect because “had threatened to burn” already supplies the precise, natural expression for issuing a threat in the past.

Common Pitfalls:
Candidates sometimes overlook the difference between verb and noun forms, accepting phrases like had threat because they recognise the word threat, without noticing that the required pattern is had plus past participle. Others are misled by minor spelling variations and may think threated is acceptable. To avoid such errors, always recall that the regular past and past participle of threaten is threatened and that threaten usually takes an infinitive (to do) rather than a gerund (doing) when describing the content of a threat.

Final Answer:
The grammatically and idiomatically correct replacement is had threatened to burn.