The filibuster, a parliamentary device that slows the snail’s pace tha

Hi All,

The filibuster, a parliamentary device that slows the snail’s pace that prevails even in the best of times in congressional sessions and tests the endurance of everyone associated with it, seems more and more an anachronism in the age of telecommunications.



There are several SV pairs in this sentence. Hence let us break this sentence down to its clauses to understand the meaning well.

Cl 1: The filibuster, a parliamentary device

Cl 2: that slows the snail’s pace

Cl 3: that prevails even in the best of times in congressional sessions

Cont. of Cl 2: and tests the endurance of everyone associated with it

Cont. of Cl 1: seems more and more an anachronism in the age of telecommunications.
(blues = subjects, greens = verbs)

So the sentence is talking about the filibuster. It is a parliamentary device that does two things:
a. slows down the snail’s pace.
b. tests the endurance of everyone associated with it.
By the way, this filibuster even slows down the pace that prevails even in the best of times of congressional sessions. The filibuster seems more and more an anachronism in the age of telecommunications.



Let’s identify the errors in the sentence.
1. All the SV pairs are accounted for.
2. Since this sentence provides general information about “filibuster”, all the “verbs” are written in simple present tense. Notice that “slows” and “tests” have the common subject “filibuster” and are properly connected to the subject with “and”.
3. Pronoun “it” refers to “filibuster” because that’s the only logical singular antecedent in the sentence.
4. All the “that” clause modifiers modify the correct entities.
5. The verbs “slows” and “tests” are parallel.
6. There are no idiom error and meaning error in the sentence. Hence, the sentence is correct as is.

POE:

Choice A: sessions and tests the endurance of everyone associated with it, seems: Correct for the reason stated above.

Choice B: sessions and tests the endurance of everyone who is associated with it, seeming to be: Incorrect. This choice changes “seems” to “seeming”. This change makes the sentence a fragment because now there is no independent clause in this sentence.

Choice C: sessions, tests the endurance of everyone associated with it, seems: Incorrect. This choice removes “and” before “tests”. Since, “testes” is the second verb for “that” that stands for “filibuster”, it is not properly connect to the subject.

Choice D: sessions, that tests the endurance of everyone associated with it and seems: Incorrect. Firstly, we still need “and” before “that tests” to connect it properly to its subject. Secondly, Use of “and” before “seems” makes this sentence a fragment as there is no independent clause in the sentence.

Choice E: sessions, testing the endurance of everyone associated with it and seeming: Incorrect. Firstly, this choice illogically makes “testing” and “seeming” parallel. Secondly, “seemingly” leads to fragment error in the sentence.



1. If a subject has more than one verb, all the verbs must be connected properly to the subject with the use of proper conjunctions.
2. Identify the correct entities in the parallel list.
3. A sentence cannot be complete without an independent clause.

Hope this helps.
Thanks.
Shraddha