A young bull moose that is orphaned is likely to be at

A young bull moose that is orphaned is likely to be at a severe disadvantage and is often unable to protect itself against predators.

A. likely to be at a severe disadvantage and is often unable to
Correct. ...........likely TO be........unable TO protect.........<== Parallel structure.

B. likely severely disadvantaged and often unable to
Wrong. ...........likely + Verb-ed..........unable + infinitive..........<== Parallelism problem.

C. liable to be severely disadvantaged and cannot often
Wrong. ............liable TO be..............cannot + protect (verb without TO) ...........<== Parallelism problem

D. liable that it is at a severe disadvantage and cannot often
Wrong. ...........liable THAT + clause.................and cannot often + Verb ...................<== Parallelism problem.

E. at a severe disadvantage, often likely to be unable that it can
Wrong. ........likely to be unable that <== every awkward grammar.

Hope it helps.

"pqhai" Thanks for the Wonderful explanation.

Here is the Official Explanation for the question,

We have 3 things to look at here,

(i) "likely" versus "liable";
(ii) "at a severe disadvantage" versus "severely disadvantaged"; and
(iii) "often unable to" versus "cannot often" versus "unable that it can"

"liable to" is acceptable when followed by a negative possibility; therefore, we cannot use this.

"Cannot often" implies that every orphaned bull moose is unable to protect itself against frequent attacks by predators- This may be true, but changes the meaning of the sentence. Thus we eliminate (C) and (D).

"Unable that it can" is idiomatically incorrect so we eliminate (E).

The word "disadvantaged" is typically used in a socio-economic context; therefore, its use here is questionable. Though it is not wrong completely.

But when comparing "severely disadvantaged" with "at a severe disadvantage ", The later seems to good usage, so we eliminate B.

so the Answer is A.
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A young bull moose that is orphaned is likely to be at a severe disadvantage and is often unable to protect itself against predators.

likely to be at a severe disadvantage and is often unable to
likely severely disadvantaged and often unable to
liable to be severely disadvantaged and cannot often
liable that it is at a severe disadvantage and cannot often
at a severe disadvantage, often likely to be unable that it can

OE


Hi, I choose "likely" instead of "liable". But, I feel "is likely to be" is awkward.
Can anyone explain why this is the best answer, please.

Can’t say for sure whether A is awkward; but all others are much more awkward
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B) likely severely disadvantaged and often unable to Faulty grammatical structure.
C) liable to be severely disadvantaged and cannot often While correct, the change from "likely" to "liable" cannot be justified in my opinion.
D) liable that it is at a severe disadvantage and cannot often Change of meaning + Wordiness
E) at a severe disadvantage, often likely to be unable that it can Faulty grammatical structure.


--

A) likely to be at a severe disadvantage and is often unable to Correct grammatical structure when compared to other answers, plus it's probably the most concise answer.

OA is A for this...............

hello, can you explain more to me about "liable to"?
Thank you.

The sentence as written has no grammatical errors. One potential problem would be a lack of parallelism in the two-part predicate "A ... moose ... is likely to be ... and is often unable to protect ...." However, the sentence is in correct parallel form. A glance at the answer choices shows that the question may be testing the choice and placement of "likely" or "liable," but "likely" is correctly used here. However, some of the answer choices would create shorter sentences, potentially reducing wordiness, so check them for errors before choosing (A).

The beginnings of the answer choices are worded in a variety of ways that makes grouping difficult. However, one way to group the answer choices is with the placement of "often" toward the end. (A) and (B) have "often unable to," (C) and (D) move often to the end with "cannot often," and (E) moves it forward with "often likely to be unable that it can."

(B) is the shortest choice and uses "often" in the same position as in the original sentence, preserving its meaning. However, (B) introduces a parallel structure error by removing the word "is" from the second part of the compound predicate. Eliminate.

By moving "often" from before "unable" to before "protect," (C) and (D) subtly change the meaning of the sentence. They also incorrectly replace "is" with "cannot" and introduce parallel structure errors. The "moose ... is liable that it is" in (D) is very awkward to the point of being nonsensical. Eliminate both of these.

The "often likely to be unable that it can protect itself" of (E) is gibberish, and the movement of "likely" from before the idea that the moose is at a disadvantage to before its inability to protect itself subtly changes the meaning of the sentence. Throw out this one.

(A) is correct. The sentence contains no errors as written, and the other choices offer no improvement.

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