"break out" vs. "break away"

[Haihao]

English Language Tests, Intermediate level

ESL/EFL Test #148 "Idioms with the phrasal verb break", question 3

Residents living in the immediate vicinity of the prison were told to be on the look out for a group of criminals who recently ......... out of gaol.

(a) broke-off
(b) brpke-away
(c) broke-out
(d) broke-up

English Language Tests, Intermediate level

ESL/EFL Test #148 "Idioms with the phrasal verb break", answer 3

Residents living in the immediate vicinity of the prison were told to be on the look out for a group of criminals who recently broke-out out of gaol.

Correct answer: (c) broke-out

Your answer was: incorrect
Residents living in the immediate vicinity of the prison were told to be on the look out for a group of criminals who recently brpke-away out of gaol.
_________________________

I thought a sentence like 'The robbery suspect broke away from the lockup.' was alright but why here 'broke away out of gaol' was incrrect? Is it because of the 'out of' but not 'from'?

haihao

[Yankee]

Hi Haihao

This sentence seems to have a number of typos and, in my opinion, it needs to be cleaned up. I'd say the test question should have also omitted the preposition 'out' and then the final correct sentence should read:

Residents living in the immediate vicinity of the prison were told to be on the look out for a group of criminals who recently broke out of gaol.

Additionally, none of the options should be hyphenated.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Hi Alan + Torsten
Do you agree?

[Alan]

Yes

I'm sending a note to Torsten.

A
_________________
English as a Second Language
You can read my ESL story Read the Signs...