Difficulty: Easy
Correct Answer: sent out
Explanation:
Introduction / Context:
This sentence improvement item tests your understanding of both verb tense and correct phrasal verb choice. The sentence talks about what the Chairman has already done: he has communicated or projected certain signals. The bracketed phrase send in is wrong in both tense and idiomatic choice. You need to select the option that best describes this completed action.
Given Data / Assumptions:
Concept / Approach:
Two corrections are needed. First, the tense should be past because the Chairman has already given the signals, so sent is required rather than send. Second, the correct phrasal verb is send out signals, not send in signals. To send out signals means to project or communicate certain messages or indications. The combination sent out therefore fixes both the tense error and the collocation error, making option C the correct choice.
Step-by-Step Solution:
Step 1: Identify the time reference. The sentence uses we can only hope that his trip will result in rich dividends, which implies that the signalling has already happened.Step 2: Recognise that the main clause describing the Chairman action should therefore use the past tense.Step 3: Recall the standard expression send out signals, meaning to convey messages, for example The central bank sent out clear signals about future interest rates.Step 4: Combine these two observations to obtain sent out as the correct verb phrase.Step 5: Eliminate send out (present tense), sent of (incorrect preposition) and No improvement (which would leave both tense and phrasal verb wrong). Thus, sent out is the correct improvement.
Verification / Alternative check:
Replace the bracketed part with each option and read the sentence. With sent out, the sentence becomes The Chairman sent out all the right signals and we can only hope that his trip will result in rich dividends, which is grammatically correct and idiomatic. With send out, there is a tense mismatch between send and will result. With sent of, the phrase sent of signals has no standard meaning. Keeping send in is clearly wrong, since send in usually refers to submitting something and not to communicating public signals.
Why Other Options Are Wrong:
Send out fails to match the past time frame. Sent of uses an incorrect preposition and is not a recognised collocation. No improvement is also incorrect, because send in all the right signals is ungrammatical and unidiomatic. The phrasal verb send in is used for sending in an application or report, not for projecting signals to markets or observers.
Common Pitfalls:
It is easy to focus only on the preposition and miss the tense error, or to focus only on tense and ignore the phrasal verb. Sentence improvement questions often combine two small errors in one phrase to require a more careful check. The safest approach is to scan for both correct time reference and natural verb plus preposition combinations before making a choice.
Final Answer:
The correct improved phrase is sent out, so option C is correct.
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