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Question

Difficulty: MediumCollocations and Fixed Phrases

During the annual budgetary review, the committee chairman emphasized that infrastructural development must _______ precedence over non-essential capital expenditure. Which word correctly completes the fixed expression?

  1. takeAnswer
  2. B
    make
  3. C
    give
  4. D
    hold

Answer

The word 'take' correctly completes the fixed expression 'take precedence over'.
The verb 'take' forms the fixed phrase 'take precedence over', which means to take priority or precedence over another item or concern.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Analyze the context and prepositional frame in the sentence.
The sentence requires a verb that collocates with the noun phrase 'precedence' followed by the preposition 'over'.
Fixed phrases and collocations in English require specific verb-preposition pairings to convey priority.
2
Evaluate the option verbs for idiomatic accuracy.
'Take' is the standard verb that pairs with 'precedence over' to express higher priority.
'Take precedence over' is the accepted idiomatic expression, whereas 'give' requires 'to' ('give precedence to') and 'make' or 'hold' do not collocate with 'precedence over'.

Key Concept

Fixed Verb-Noun-Preposition Collocations
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Topics

Collocations and Fixed Phrases

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