What the question looks like
A sentence has four highlighted words marked (A), (B), (C) and (D). Two of them may be in each other's places. You must identify the pair to interchange so that the sentence becomes meaningful and grammatically correct, or choose No interchange required if the sentence is already correct.
Step-by-step approach
- Read the sentence for meaning. A swapped sentence usually sounds absurd: "The guard was arrested by the alert thief."
- Check parts of speech. A noun can only swap with a noun, a verb with a verb of the same form. This alone often leaves one possible pair.
- Swap and re-read. Put the two words in each other's places and read the whole sentence again. It must now be fully logical.
- Check the other options quickly to make sure no second swap also works.
Rules to remember
- Agreement can help: The branch were asked... signals that a plural noun (customers) belongs in that position.
- Look at collocations: launch campaigns, online fraud, obtain credit, lack collateral. Words in the wrong collocation are the ones to swap.
- Cause and effect must point the right way: heavy rain damaged the crops, not the reverse.
- Sometimes no swap is needed. Do not swap words just because the sentence is long; test the logic.
Worked example
"Small businesses (A) often struggle (B) to obtain collateral (C) because they lack the credit (D) that banks demand." Banks demand collateral and businesses struggle to obtain credit. Swap C-D: "Small businesses often struggle to obtain credit because they lack the collateral that banks demand."
Common traps
- Swapping words of different parts of speech; the result will be ungrammatical.
- Stopping at the first swap that "improves" the sentence. The right swap makes it completely sensible.
- Assuming every question has a swap. In many sets, one question needs no interchange.
A quick elimination drill
Before reading the options, label each marked word with its part of speech: noun (N), verb (V), adjective (Adj). Only pairs with the same label can be swapped. If (A) and (C) are nouns while (B) is a verb and (D) an adjective, only A-C is possible, and you only need to check whether that swap makes the sentence logical. When two pairs share a part of speech, use agreement and collocation to decide: the customers were asked but the branch was closed; banks demand collateral and businesses obtain credit.