Select the most appropriate option to improve the bold part of the sentence.
She was not enough tall to play basketball.

Correct option is D

The correct substitution of the highlighted words is (d) not tall enough.
Explanation: The phrase “not enough tall” is ungrammatical because enough follows adjectives/adverbs, it does not precede them. With adjectives, the correct pattern is adjective + enough. Therefore, the correct construction is “not tall enough to play basketball.” This keeps the intended meaning of insufficient height for the purpose stated.
Grammatical rule used:
· Position of “enough”:
· With adjectives/adverbs: Adj/Adv + enough (e.g., tall enough, quickly enough).
· With nouns: enough + Noun (e.g., enough time, enough money).
· Purpose/Result clause: Adj/Adv + enough + to + V₁ expresses sufficiency or its negation when used with not.
· Example:
· Correct: She isn’t old enough to drive.
· Incorrect: She isn’t enough old to drive.
Information booster / exceptions:
· too + adjective + to + V₁ shows excess leading to an undesirable result (often negative implication): She is too short to play basketball. This is grammatical, but it changes the structure and emphasis from insufficiency (“not tall enough”) to excess (“too short”). In error-correction, we usually prefer the minimal change that fixes the grammar while preserving the original idea—hence (d) is best.
Why other options are incorrect:
· (a) too short — Grammatically correct pattern ( too + adj + to), but it alters the expression from “not…enough” to “too…,” changing nuance and deviating from the original structure to be improved.
· (b) not tall — Incomplete; it lacks “enough” and the to-infinitive structure of sufficiency ( not tall enough to…).
· (c) very short — Changes meaning and lacks the to-infinitive result clause; it states degree without linking to purpose.