Home » Verbal Ability » Sentence Improvement

Sentence improvement — correct conditional form in the 'if'-clause: use past perfect 'had tried' → 'If he had tried, he would have succeeded.'

Difficulty: Easy

is tried
was tried
had tried
No improvement

Correct Answer: had tried

Explanation:

Given sentence
If he would have tried he would have succeeded.

Concept/Approach
In standard English, the if-clause of a third conditional uses the past perfect, not 'would have': If + had + past participle → would have + past participle.

Correction
If he had tried, he would have succeeded.

Why others are wrong
'is tried'/'was tried' → change meaning (passive) and tense; 'No improvement' leaves a common learner error.

Final Answer
had tried

← Previous Question Next Question→

More Questions from Sentence Improvement

Sentence improvement — infinitive stacking after a catenative: prefer 'It will be no good to try to find an excuse next time' ('to try to find'), not gerund stacking.
Sentence improvement — Choose the most natural infinitive after ‘‘remind me’’ to correct and clarify the request: ‘‘Please remind me of posting these letters to my relatives.’’ Expand and modernize the construction while preserving the original meaning for SEO-friendly grammar practice.
Sentence improvement — Negative fronting with subject–auxiliary inversion: refine ‘‘Not a word they spoke to the unfortunate wife about it’’ to the most idiomatic formal structure for emphasis and clarity.
Sentence improvement — Choose the most accurate verb for a gas causing illness: improve the report ‘‘a mysterious nerve gas affected a large number of people’’ to a more precise verb that aligns with health-related usage.
Sentence improvement — Select the correct present perfect with ‘‘since’’ and a time expression: refine ‘‘We had nothing to eat since 8 o'clock, this morning.’’ for precise aspect and punctuation.
Sentence improvement — Present perfect with ‘‘yet’’: correct the tense and polarity in ‘‘We did not see this movie yet.’’ to match standard contemporary English usage.
Sentence improvement — Best preposition for temporal cause: choose the most concise alternative to ‘‘My friend was in hospital for a week after an accident’’ so the time-cause link reads naturally and formally.
Sentence improvement — Case after ‘‘but’’ meaning ‘‘except’’: correct the pronoun in ‘‘All, but her, had made an attempt.’’ to maintain formal subject case in elliptical comparisons.
Sentence improvement — Choose the precise noun for ‘‘lack’’: revise the economic sentence ‘‘we have no shortcoming to cheap labour in India’’ to the most idiomatic collocation.
Sentence improvement — Perfect tense with ‘‘since + past point in time’’: confirm whether ‘‘I have lived in Delhi since I was four’’ already uses the correct aspect and therefore needs no change.

Discussion & Comments

No comments yet. Be the first to comment!

Join Discussion