Examkin

Question

Difficulty: EasyIdiomatic Prepositions

The design of the new city library is similar with the classical architecture of the historic town hall.

Which choice best replaces the underlined portion of the sentence?

  1. A
    NO CHANGE
  2. similar toAnswer
  3. C
    similar than
  4. D
    similar as

Answer

The correct choice is 'similar to' because the adjective 'similar' idiomatically requires the preposition 'to' to establish a comparison between two nouns.
The correct choice uses the preposition 'to' because 'similar to' is the established idiomatic expression used to describe a resemblance between two entities.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Identify the underlined prepositional relationship in the sentence context.
The sentence compares the design of a library to the architecture of a town hall using the adjective 'similar' and the preposition 'with'.
This allows you to determine whether the adjective-preposition pair conforms to standard English conventions.
2
Determine the correct idiomatic preposition that pairs with 'similar'.
In standard written English, the adjective 'similar' always pairs with the preposition 'to' to indicate resemblance.
Prepositions must follow established idiomatic conventions rather than literal translation or colloquial patterns.
3
Evaluate the choices to locate the correct phrasing.
The choice containing 'similar to' is the only option that uses the correct preposition. The options containing 'similar with', 'similar than', and 'similar as' are unidiomatic.
Replacing the incorrect preposition 'with' with 'to' corrects the grammatical error.

Key Concept

Idiomatic prepositions are fixed combinations of words (verbs, adjectives, or nouns paired with specific prepositions) that must be used together to be grammatically correct. The adjective 'similar' must always be paired with the preposition 'to'.
Rate this question

Topics

Idiomatic Prepositions

More questions from this topic