Quote:
Plausible though it sounds, the weakness of the hypothesis is that it does not incorporate all relevant evidence.
(A) Plausible though it sounds, the weakness of the hypothesis
(B) Even though it sounds plausible, the weakness of the hypothesis
(C) Though plausible, the hypothesis’ weakness
(D) Though the hypothesis sounds plausible, its weakness
(E) The weakness of the hypothesis which sounds plausible
The correct answer should be D. This is actually a pretty straightforward question, but it does reveal an important (and simple!) rule about how to approach SC questions.
The rule is this: the
non-underlined portion is ALWAYS correct, and you should look to make the underlined portion agree with it. In this question, we see "
it does not incorporate..." in the non-underlined portion. Well, what can the pronoun "it" be replacing? Since it is the hypothesis that does not incorporate the evidence, "it" can only replace "hypothesis".
Options A,B,E - All say "weakness of the hypothesis", thus making "weakness" the key noun being replaced. This is incorrect.
OUTOption C - In the noun phrase "hypothesis' weakness", the leading noun is once again the weakness, rather than the hypothesis.
OUTOption D - Right by elimination, but what we clearly see that sets it apart is that it makes the initial subject "hypothesis" itself. This option is therefore
CORRECTRemember that the non-underlined portion of an SC question is often just as important or critical to help you solve SC questions effectively, since it contains clues as to what the underlined portion needs to line up with. Although this question tests you primarily on pronouns, this rule becomes even more relevant with parallelism/comparison based questions.
- Matoo