corrections 1

(A) The plane / He was taking off at the scheduled time.

(B) The plane is taking off as scheduled.

(C) They swam/waded through the floodwater.

(D) Tom and his family enjoyed a picnic at the beach.

(E) She played on the swing and see-saw in the playground.

(D) Tom and his family enjoyed a picnic at the beach.

Why can't we use "by the beach"?

'By the beach' would mean that the picnic was 'near the beach' or 'next to the beach'. Is that the meaning you wanted?

Yes, that is what I mean. So, my sentence is correct? "... by the beach"?

IS that correct?

As should be evident from my earlier correction, I found it confusing. Use 'near' as Amy suggested-- although the premise is odd, as people normally picnic at the beach as a location, even though they are not on the sand itself.

Learners who post grammatical but otherwise semantically odd sentences are liable to have the wrong thing corrected for them.

In the UK we picnic on the beach.

We wouldn't normally say simply 'by' to mean near. We would say 'by' 'near' or 'next to' but I agree it's odd, as you aren't really saying where you ARE picnicking. You don't normally just say you did something near to somewhere without a bit more detail. People still wouldn't have a clue where you were talking about - it could be one of 100 or 1000 place