IPMAT Indore 2024 · Verbal Ability · Question 20

Two separate errors in the underlined part.

Wrong word. Loose (rhymes with goose) is an adjective meaning “not tight”, or a verb meaning “to release”. The verb needed here is lose (rhymes with news), meaning “to misplace”. Loosed is therefore the wrong word entirely.

Wrong tense. The adverbial “all the time” signals a habitual action, which English expresses with the simple present. The present perfect (“has lost”) describes completed actions with present relevance, not repeated habits.

Building the correct form. Habitual + third person singular \to loses.

He is very careless and loses his keys all the time.

This also keeps the two clauses parallel: “is very careless” (simple present) and “loses” (simple present).

Why the others fail:

(a) was losing his keys — past continuous; clashes with the present-tense “is very careless”.

(b) is loosing his keys — repeats the loose/lose spelling error, and the continuous tense is wrong for a habit.

(d) has loses his keys — ungrammatical; an auxiliary has cannot be followed by a finite verb.

Answer: Option 3

Shortcut. “All the time” is the giveaway — frequency adverbs (always, often, all the time, every day) require the simple present for habits. That single rule eliminates (a), (b) and (d) before you even notice the spelling trap.

And fix the spelling confusion permanently:

lose (verb, one o sound as in news) — to misplace, to be defeated

loose (adjective) — not tight

Mnemonic: lose has lost an o.