Test: Sentence Correction- 3 - GMAT MCQ

Mary does things to make something more inconvenient. D and E change the meaning in that they represent her husband as doing something inconveniently. C changes the meaning and implies the inconvenience is necessary for him to have a good time. A is grammatically correct and is simpler and clearer than B. A is the correct answer.

You have to spot the grammatical error. The subject is plural in A, B, C and D, therefore you have to use the plural verb form. Not ‘it makes’, but ‘they make’. That means choices A, B and C are wrong. Choice E has a singular subject, his love of basketball, so the verb form would have to be the singular ‘makes’. Only D is correct.

This question has to do with time agreement. Because the university gave the award in the past, it must further refer to a performance that had happened before that. Therefore the past perfect tense is required to refer to the performance. Only A has this tense. E also changes the meaning. A is correct.

Is it ‘five times more likely’ or ‘five times as likely’. The correct expression is ‘five times more likely’. When you use ‘more’ you must use ‘than’. Eliminate A, B and E. C is shorter, clearer and simpler than D. C is correct.

D and E change the meaning. ‘Significantly affecting’ is different from ‘significant in affecting’. B is shorter and clearer than A and C. B is correct.

C is wordy and uses the incorrect expression ‘effects in’. It should be ‘effects on’. D changes the meaning. B is shorter and clearer than A and E. B is correct.

The first thing you have to figure out is do you use with or that first. The intention of the sentence is not to state what will happen, but what may/can happen. The point is that she does not have a chest cold with a persistent cough, but that her chest cold, if it were to have a persistent cough, could produce some other result. Consequently, choices B, C, D and E are incorrect. Therefore, choice A is the correct answer.

This question has to do with differentiating whether you are comparing two actions or two things. You would say, for example, the frenzied man is like the raging bull. But you would have to say: the man can be whipped into frenzy just as a rampaging bull can be whipped into a further state of rage. When you compare two actions, you need to use as, not like. That leaves two possible choices: D and E. Choice D is incorrect, however, because it implies that the bull is piercing itself with swords. Choice E is the correct answer.

B incorrectly associates ‘more rapidly’ with dreaming rather than with eye movement. A, C and E incorrectly refer to the process of waking rather than the period of time of being awake. Choice D is the correct answer.

The first verb in the sentence is in the past. The past perfect in B is incorrect as the moving did not take place before the losing. The verb form ‘having been forced to’ in D is incorrect. The placement of ‘from their apartment’ in C is much better than in A. C is shorter and simpler than E. C is correct.

The first thing you should look at here is subject/verb agreement. Is the subject in this sentence singular or plural? The word ‘disagreements’ is plural, so you should use the verb “have”. Note how the GMAT tries to trick you by putting the word ‘child’, which is singular, next to a verb that should be plural. That eliminates choices A, B and C. Choice E is wordy and inefficient. Choice D is the correct answer.

'Likely most’ is incorrect idiomatically. Eliminate A and B. ‘To so talk’ in C is also incorrect idiomatically. ‘Due to’ in C is also incorrect. ‘Due to’ can only be used as a replacement for ‘attributable to’. For example, ‘the low level of the lakes is due to the lack of rain’. ‘Would likely appreciate’ in C and E is also incorrect idiomatically. D is correct.

Choices A and E are missing clear noun references. Who or what is making or
having the identification? The students. Choice D is wordy. ‘Would’ in C is not
correct. ‘Can’ in B maintains parallel structure. B is the best answer.

This question is straightforward. You simply have to correct mistakes in grammar in the area of subject/verb agreement. The American school is one school, singular, so you would use its, not their. That eliminates choices A and B. Also, because the American school is singular, you need to use has and not have. That eliminates choice C. Choice D uses a pronoun, ‘that’, that has no clear reference. That what? The adverb of frequency, ‘always’ should come before the main verb. Choice E is the correct answer.

This sentence is causative. ‘Because’ or ‘for’ the reason that everyone was not talkative, something happened. The word ‘with’ is clearly the wrong choice here. It does not imply instrumentation, not causation. Choice B changes the meaning. ‘Not everyone knew’ has a different meaning from ‘everyone did not know’. Last of all, choice A is incorrect because it is too wordy. Choice E is the correct answer.

B and C change the meaning. She made copies of more than fifty of the diaries, not merely more than fifty copies. If you accept the latter option it could be that she copied the entire collection fifty times. D is passive. That leaves two possibilities: A and E. Choice E is in the wrong tense, however. The sentence begins in the past tense and must continue in the past tense throughout. Choice A is the correct answer.

This question largely has to do with dangling modifiers. Who used the methods? The Chinese generals did. The subject must come after the comma. Eliminate A, B and E. Although there is no comma, D has a similar problem. D is also passive. C is correct.

The easiest thing to figure out here is whether or not to use ‘of’ at then end of the option. Would you say he is as melodramatic of a man as any I have seen, or he is as melodramatic a man as any I have seen? The latter is sufficient. That means you can eliminate choices A, C, D and E. Choice B is the correct answer.

If the first part of the sentence is in the past tense, then what happened earlier should be in the past perfect tense. That eliminates A, B, D and E. Choice C is the correct answer.

This is a very simple question involving subject/verb agreement. Should it be ‘two children enter’ or ‘two children enters’? They enter (plural). That eliminates choices A, C and E. Choice B implies that one of the children is a wheelchair. Choice D is the correct answer.

This question deals with parallel structure. The important thing to realize here is that commas function differently from conjunctions in what they imply about parallel structure. If you say ‘to cook, serve’, you are not using parallel structure. If you say to cook and serve, you are using parallel structure. The ‘and’ carries the implied structure over, the comma does not. Choices B, D and E make this mistake. Choice C has a more straightforward mistake in parallel structure: it is missing the ‘to’ in ‘to buy’. D and E also use the wrong tense and therefore change the meaning. Choice A is the correct answer.

This question involves dangling modifiers. What burned out eons ago? Thousands of stars did. ‘Thousands of stars’ and not ‘the night sky’ must therefore come after the comma. Eliminate A and B. C has an incorrect tense. It should be ‘spot’ and not ‘are spotting’. Choice D also has a mistake in tense. The stars are not burnt out at present, they burned out a long time ago. Choice E is the correct answer.

What is the comparison being made in this sentence? It is being made between two sets of children: Maria’s and her neighbor’s. Choices B, C, D and E all imply that the comparison is being made between Maria’s children and her neighbor, not between Maria’s children and her neighbor’s children. Choice A is the correct answer.

The sentence should have a contrast within it. Even though the housewife seems content, she is unhappy. E does not have this element of contrast. Choices A and B present the pronoun ‘she’ without any clear reference. It is better to have the pronoun after the noun to which it is related, not before. Choice C has a dangling modifier. The person who is content must be mentioned directly after the comma. Choice D is therefore the correct answer.

The sentence as written implies the students may be unlikely to learn the language in other months of regular teaching. For example, they may be unlikely to learn in January and February. This would imply that they may be able to learn in March and April, for example. This is clearly not the intention of the sentence. Eliminate A, B and D. ‘Under’ in D is also incorrect. E reverses the meaning by adding ‘not’. C is correct.

The first thing you should determine is whether to use ‘during’ or ‘at’. ‘At’ is usually used with a specific time, not with a period of time. You would say, for example, ‘at five o’clock’, but not ‘at this year’. That leaves you with A, B and E as possible answers. The placement of ‘by seventy percent’ is poor in E. Choice A uses the word ‘down’. This is redundant, because you already have the word fell. Choice B is the correct answer.

You have to ask yourself what word should follow ‘active’. The committee itself is not a drawing together. Eliminate B. You also would not say someone is active to do something, rather you would say someone is active in something. Choice A is the correct answer.

The word ‘actors’ is plural. Therefore, the actors have become known as prime examples. That means choices A and B are incorrect. ‘Being’ is unnecessary in Choice C. Choice D would be correct if it said between x and y, not between x with y. Choice E is the correct answer.

This question is about parallel structure. The parallel structure is ‘report’ and ‘release’. Only D has this.

This sentence compares two actions. The part of the sentence that cannot be changed says ‘other drugs should also be covered’. The earlier part of this comparative sentence should maintain this structure. Choice B incorrectly compares a noun, ‘alcohol’ to this action. C also compares ‘alcohol’ to the action. E incorrectly compares another noun, ‘the discussion’ of alcohol’ to the action. D uses ‘while’, a word which introduces a contrast, not a comparison. For example you would say, ‘while paper is available, cardboard is not’. Choice A correctly compares two actions, ‘alcohol is discussed’ and ‘other drugs should also be covered’.