In the following question, a sentence is given with a phrase highlighted in bold. Select the option given below that can replace the phrase in bold to make the sentence grammatically and contextually correct and mark that as your answer. If the sentence is correct as it is, mark 'no improvement required', as the answer College students often are excited about the tasty food that they get in the college canteen.

Solution

(b) In case an adverb describes the 'to be' verb form (is, am, are, was, were), it is placed after the verb. So, here the adverb 'often' should come after the plural verb 'are' ('to be' form of verb). Options a) and b) make this correction, but option a) is incorrect because 'like' is a base form of verb, whereas 'are' should be followed by the participle form of verb (either past participle (V3) or present participle (V4, i.e., -ing from)). So, option b) correctly replaces the highlighted phrase. Hence, option b) is correct.