Fill in the blank with the most appropriate option.
He preferred playing football to ______ grammar.

Correct option is A

The correct option to fill in the blank is (a) studying.
Explanation: After “prefer” and “to” (when used as a preposition for comparison), both verbs should be in the gerund (V+ing) form.
Example: She prefers reading books to watching TV.
Why other options are incorrect:
· (b) studies: Noun form – does not match parallel structure.
· (c) studied: Past tense – inappropriate here.
· (d) study: Base form – not parallel to “playing”.
�� Information Booster: In comparisons like “prefer X to Y,” use gerunds for both X and Y for grammatical parallelism.