IPMAT Indore 2024 · Verbal Ability · Question 21

The error. Two problems compound here.

Tense mismatch. The main clause uses “will not attend” — a future decision made now. A present reason must support it, not a past-perfect-continuous one. “Had been having” places the headache in a period completed before some other past event, which does not exist in this sentence.

Stative verb. Have, in the sense of “experience a condition”, is a stative verb and resists continuous forms. “I am having a headache” is non-standard; “I have a headache” is correct.

The fix. Simple present:

I have a headache, so I will not attend the meeting.

Why the others fail:

(a) was having a headache — past continuous; still mismatched with “will not attend”, and still uses the continuous form of a stative verb.

(c) used to have a headache — describes a discontinued past habit, implying he no longer gets headaches, which would be a reason to attend.

(d) have headache — the tense is right but the article is missing. Countable illnesses take a: a headache, a cold, a sore throat. (Uncountable ones do not: flu, pneumonia, malaria.)

Answer: Option 2

Shortcut. Work backwards from the unchangeable clause. “so I will not attend” is fixed and present/future-oriented, so the reason must be present. That removes (a) and (c) at once.

Between (b) and (d), the difference is a single article — and that is exactly the point of the question. Remember: have a headache, have a cold, but have flu, have pneumonia.

A broader habit: in sentence-correction questions, identify the part of the sentence that is not underlined first. It constrains everything the answer can be.