The ACCOUNTANT paid the workers july salary in september

Analyze the question

This is an emphatic stress question. The capitalized word, ACCOUNTANT, is the one the speaker stresses. Emphatic stress usually shows contrast or correction. The sentence is the answer to a question, or a correction of a mistaken assumption, about that particular word.

Concept

When a word is stressed, the sentence tells us that this word is the new or correct information. The matching question is usually one that asks about, or wrongly guesses, that same element.

Here, the stress on ACCOUNTANT means: "It was the accountant (and not someone else) who paid the workers' July salary in September."

Checking the options

• A. "When were the workers paid?" This would stress the time (SEPTEMBER), not the person who paid.
• B. "Did the cashier pay the workers' salary in September?" This asks about the person who paid, the cashier. The stressed reply "The ACCOUNTANT paid..." corrects that person: not the cashier, but the accountant. This matches.
• C. "Workers received their July salary in September." This would relate to stress on the time or on the workers, not on the payer.
• D. "The September salary was paid in July." This would relate to stress on JULY or SEPTEMBER.

Answer

Option B is the only one that mentions a different person doing the paying (the cashier), so the stress on ACCOUNTANT is a correction of that.

Tip

For emphatic stress questions, ask: "What is being corrected or asked about?" Find the option that questions or gets wrong the same element as the capitalized word, such as the person, the time, the place, or the action. The stressed word in the answer is the correction of that element.