"Short Of" as a Restrictive Conditional Preposition
5 exercises — practise naming a single drastic exception with "short of".
0 / 5 completed
1 / 5
Which sentence correctly uses "short of" plus a gerund to name the one extreme measure that would solve a problem?
"Short of rewriting the entire indexing layer, there's no way to close the remaining latency gap" correctly follows "short of" with the gerund "rewriting". Option B wrongly uses the bare verb. Option C wrongly uses the infinitive "to rewrite". Option D wrongly separates "of" from "short".
2 / 5
Which sentence correctly uses "short of" plus a noun phrase to rule out all options except a drastic one?
"Short of a full data-center failover, there's nothing more we can do to restore service tonight" correctly places the noun phrase "a full data-center failover" directly after "short of". Option B adds a redundant "it". Option C wrongly separates "short" and "of". Option D wrongly reorders the article and adjective inside the noun phrase.
3 / 5
Which sentence correctly uses "short of" mid-sentence to concede that only one drastic action would work, after listing what has already been tried?
"Short of sharding the database, performance won't improve further" correctly uses the gerund "sharding" immediately after "short of", with its object "the database" following. Option B wrongly uses the infinitive. Option C wrongly uses the bare verb. Option D wrongly reorders the object before the gerund.
4 / 5
Which sentence correctly distinguishes "short of" (naming the one drastic exception) from "unless" (a general condition), keeping the structures separate?
"Short of replacing the vendor entirely, we're unlikely to hit the new SLA, unless the vendor invests heavily in their infrastructure" correctly keeps "short of" and "unless" as two separate, independently valid connectors introducing two different conditions. Options B, C, and D all incorrectly fuse the two connectors into one ungrammatical phrase.
5 / 5
Which sentence correctly uses "short of" to introduce the only remaining, drastic option in an incident timeline?
"Short of restoring from the cold backup, nothing restored write access" correctly uses the gerund "restoring" after "short of". Option B wrongly reorders "restoring" and "of". Option C wrongly uses the bare verb. Option D wrongly inserts "to" before the gerund.