Question

Find out the error and correct the given sentence:
life has taught me an important lesson the more i waste time regretting something i did the more i lose time in trying to fix it
a- No change
b- Life has taught me an important lesson: the more I waste time regretting something I did, the more I lose time in trying to fix it.
c- Life has taught me an important lesson the more i waste time regretting something i did the more I lose time in trying to fix it.
d- Life has taught me an important lesson the more I waste time regretting something I did, the more I lose time in trying to fix it.

Answer 1

Hint: We use a colon (:) to join two independent clauses that share a relation as one of the independent clauses explains or modifies the other.

Complete answer:
 As given in the hint, independent clauses contain a subject and a verb that express a complete thought and have the ability to stand alone as a sentence.
For example- I just want you to be aware: only one can play at a time. Here, we have separated two independent clauses with the help of a colon and to emphasize the second independent clause.
In the given question- We can conclude that life has taught me an important lesson: the more I waste time regretting something I did, the more I lost time in trying to fix it.
Here, we have used a colon to lay emphasis on the second clause and to illustrate the relation of both the clauses.
Now, let’s examine the given options-
Option a- No change
Option b- ‘Life has taught me an important lesson: the more I waste time regretting something I did, the more I lose time in trying to fix it’ is the correct option because we have used a colon to separate the two independent clauses.
Option c- ‘Life has taught me an important lesson the more i waste time regretting something i did the more I lose time in trying to fix it’ is an incorrect option because we haven’t used a colon to emphasize the second clause.
Option d- ‘Life has taught me an important lesson the more I waste time regretting something I did, the more I lose time in trying to fix it’ is an incorrect option because we haven’t used a colon to separate the independent clauses. The correct answer is Option ‘b’.

Note:
We generally use a colon to separate the two independent clauses and lay emphasis on the second independent clause.