Find the part of the sentence that contains an error : The regulator's decision to postpone the implementation (1) / was attribut…

Question

Find the part of the sentence that contains an error :

The regulator's decision to postpone the implementation (1) / was attributed partly to industry pressure (2) / and partly due to legal ambiguity (3) / surrounding the recent amendments. (4)

1. A. (1)
2. B. (2)
3. C. (3) (Correct answer)
4. D. (4)

Correct Answer

Option C — (3)

Detailed Solution & Explanation

The correct answer is part (3).

Key Points

• The sentence uses the paired construction partly … and partly …, so both halves must take the same grammatical form.
• Part (2) reads "was attributed partly to industry pressure", so the second half must also use to.
• Part (3) switches to "and partly due to legal ambiguity", breaking the parallel.
• The correction is "and partly to legal ambiguity".

Additional Information

• Attribute collocates with to — *attributed to* — and inserting *due to* both duplicates the preposition and breaks the pairing.
• Paired constructions requiring matched structures: partly … partly, not only … but also, either … or, neither … nor, both … and, whether … or.
• Whenever a correlative pair appears in an error-detection sentence, compare the two halves directly and ignore the rest — the planted error is nearly always in the second half.