thinktank wrote:
A driver's license in one country is not always enough to enable a person to drive in another country legally.
(A) A driver's license in one country is not always enough to enable a person to drive in another country legally
(B) It is not always enough to have a driver's license in one country in order to drive in another country legally
(C) It is not always enough to have a driver's license in one country for driving in another country legally
(D) Having a driver's license in one country, it is not always enough in order to drive in another country legally
(E) A driver's license in one country is not always enough for driving in another country legally
Notice that
(B) &
(C) &
(D) all have the empty "it", the "it" that doesn't refer to a particular antecedent but rather acts as a "dummy subject" for the sentence. Consider:
(a)
It is generally the case that using the empty "it" makes the sentence longer, more indirect, and less powerful. (b)
The empty "it" generally makes the sentence longer, more indirect, and less powerful. Obviously, the first version is self-referential in its flaws.
(B) &
(C) &
(D) are all out.
To compare
(A) &
(E), look a radically scaled down versions of the sentence:
(A) A driver's license is not always enough to enable a person to drive.(E) A driver's license is not always enough for driving.The first explicitly refers to the idea of permission ---- the driver's licence confers on me permission to drive, that is, it enables me to drive. BTW, the word
enable, like the word
able, idiomatically takes an infinitive ---- see:
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2012/verbs-that ... -the-gmat/The second is less precise, less formal, sloppier --- For example, consider each without the subject. In the second one,
"____________ is not always enough for driving," think of how many thousands of different things could go in that blank --- "two healthy eyes", "clear weather conditions", "a new car", "a full tank of gas", "a paved road", "clear traffic conditions" ---- there many different categories of things that play into the act of driving a car. Version
(E) doesn't distinguish among these.
By contrast,
(A) quite clearly focuses us on the category of permission. This makes (A) a logically tighter and better organized sentence.
Does this make sense?
Mike