2015 · Q49
Hardly I had fallen asleep, when the bell rang.
EnglishSentence Improvement
- AI was fallen
- Bhad I fallen
- CI fell asleep
- DNo improvement
Explanation
When a sentence begins with a negative adverb like 'hardly', inversion is required: the auxiliary verb comes immediately before the subject. Thus 'Hardly I had fallen asleep' must become 'Hardly had I fallen asleep'. This inversion also adds the emphasis that fronting 'hardly' is meant to convey. Hence option (B) is correct.