Hardly had the thieves seen the polices than they started running towards the black van ........

English ( Master) Sentence Improvement

Directions: In this question, a part of the sentence is made bold. Below are given alternatives to the bold part at (A), (B), (C) and (D) which may improve the sentence. Choose the correct alternative. In case no replacement is needed, mark (E) as your answer.

Hardly had the thieves seen the polices than they started running towards the black van.

thieves seen the police than

thiefs seen the polices when

thieves seen the police when

thieves seeing the polices when

No correction required

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Explanation:

The original sentence is incorrect

Reason: There are two errors in the bold part.

Firstly, the term ‘police’ is a collective noun. Collective nouns are used in singular form. Therefore, ‘polices’ must be replaced by ‘police’ in order to make the sentence correct.

Secondly, ‘hardly’ and ‘when’ form a pair of coordinating conjunctions. Coordinating conjunctions join phrases, words, etc. of equal ranks. Therefore, ‘when’ should be used instead of ‘than’ in order to make it a grammatically correct sentence.

Among the choices available, option C replaces the bold part most appropriately.

The sentence after replacement becomes:

Hardly had the thieves seen the police when they started running towards the black van.

Option C is hence the correct answer.