Out of the following 5 sentences, select the most suitable sentence with respect to grammar and usage: A. Since the report lacked needed information, it was of no use to them. B. The report was useless to them because there were no needed information in it. C. Since the report did not contain the needed information, it was not useful to them. D. Since the report lacked needed information, it would not have been useful to them.

GATE 2015 · General Aptitude · Grammatical Error · medium

Answer: Option A is the most suitable sentence: 'Since the report lacked needed information, it was of no use to them.'

1. Check Option B for grammar: 'There were no needed information' — 'information' is uncountable, so the verb must be 'was', not 'were'. This is a subject-verb agreement error. Option B is eliminated.
2. Check Option C for redundancy and clarity: Option C says 'did not contain the needed information, it was not useful'. While not outright wrong, the double negative phrasing 'did not contain... not useful' is verbose. Compared to A's direct 'lacked... of no use', C is less precise and clean.
3. Check Option D for tense consistency: 'Since the report lacked needed information, it would not have been useful' mixes simple past fact ('lacked') with the conditional perfect ('would not have been'), creating a logical inconsistency. Option D is eliminated.
4. Confirm Option A as the correct answer: Option A: 'Since the report lacked needed information, it was of no use to them.' — uses 'since' correctly as a causal connector, 'lacked' as the past tense verb, 'needed information' as the proper noun phrase, and 'was of no use' as a grammatically clean predicate. No errors found.