0

Mr. A was offered a number of positions in the company, _____ of which were exactly what he was looking for.

1) few
2) both
3) none
4) all

The correct answer for this question is 3 - none.

As for me, of the two answers, none and all, what is more natural for the above sentence is very confusing to me.

Can you explain why the "all" above does not match the answer?

Improve this question
1
  • 3
    Yet another English test written by someone who does not speak English.
    – Hot Licks
    Commented Jan 21, 2018 at 14:59

3 Answers 3

Reset to default
2

This is a question not of grammar but of semantics. If you want a fruit, and I offer you the choice of a banana, an apple, and a pear, what are the odds that all three of those are "exactly what you were looking for"? Pretty slim. So given the choice between "all" and "none", the latter is the likelier option.

Improve this answer
1
  • I appreciate your kind advice.
    – Woo Choi
    Commented Jan 22, 2018 at 14:37
0

"none" is correct and is more widely used

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=few+of+which+were+exactly%2C+none+of+which+were+exactly%2C+few+of+which+were+exactly&case_insensitive=on&year_start=1600&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cnone%20of%20which%20were%20exactly%3B%2Cc0

Improve this answer
1
0

Number 4 is the only grammatically correct sentence.

Number 3 requires of which was because none is singular.

Number 2 requires a number of to be replaced with two.

Number 1 is only correct if you insert a few.

Improve this answer
1

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .