Find the part of the sentence that contains an error:
The policy aims to neither penalise first-time offenders (1)/ nor those who may have violated norms (2)/ due to systemic ambiguity (3)/ rather than deliberate intent. (4)

Correct option is A

Option (a) (1) contains an error.
Detailed explanation of error: The correlative pair “neither…nor” must be placed so that it directly connects two parallel elements. Here, the sentence wrongly uses “aims to neither penalise…”. In standard grammar, neither should come before the first parallel item, i.e., before “penalise,” not after “to.”
· Incorrect: aims to neither penalise… nor…
· Correct: aims neither to penalise… nor to penalise… / aims to penalise neither… nor…
Corrected sentence (best exam-standard):
“The policy aims neither to penalise first-time offenders nor those who may have violated norms due to systemic ambiguity rather than deliberate intent.”
Grammatical rule used:
· In neither…nor constructions, maintain parallelism (same grammatical structure on both sides).
· Place neither immediately before the first of the two balanced elements.
· Example: She neither called nor messaged me. / She aims neither to resign nor to complain.
Information booster / exception:
· You can also write: “The policy aims to penalise neither first-time offenders nor those who…” (neither placed before the first object), but the cleanest exam pattern is neither to + V1 nor to + V1 for perfect parallelism.