Question

Many of them chiselled from solid rock centuries ago, the mountainous regions are dotted with hundreds of monasteries:

• A. The mountainous regions are dotted with hundreds of monasteries, many of which are chiselled from solid rock centuries ago.
• B. The mountainous regions are dotted with hundreds of monasteries, many of them chiselled from solid rock centuries ago.
• C. Chiselled from solid rock centuries ago, the mountainous regions are dotted with many hundreds of monasteries.
• D. Hundreds of monasteries, many of them chiselled from solid rock centuries ago, are dotting the mountainous regions.

Hint:

Always check for misplaced modifiers — descriptive phrases must be placed next to the noun they describe to avoid confusion.

Answer 1

The Correct Option is B

The goal of this sentence improvement question is to maintain grammatical correctness, logical meaning, and conciseness.
The main subject of the sentence is "The mountainous regions," and the main verb is "are dotted."
The phrase describing the monasteries — “many of them chiselled from solid rock centuries ago” — should follow the noun “monasteries” directly to avoid ambiguity and maintain sentence flow.
Option (a) uses “many of which” and keeps the meaning correct, but “are chiselled” implies present tense for an event that happened centuries ago, which is inconsistent.
Option (b) uses “many of them chiselled” — a participle phrase that clearly conveys the past action while maintaining correct tense. It also keeps the sentence smooth and natural.
Option (c) incorrectly starts with “Chiselled from solid rock centuries ago” and then refers to “the mountainous regions,” which makes it seem as if the regions, not the monasteries, were chiselled. This is a misplaced modifier.
Option (d) changes the verb to “are dotting,” which unnecessarily shifts the focus to ongoing action rather than describing a general fact.
Thus, option (b) is the best version because it is concise, grammatically correct, and free from modifier errors.