All across Detroit, whitewashed fences, new roofs, and freshly painted

VERITAS PREP OFFICIAL SOLUTION:

This sentence correction problem uses an unusual modifier structure to “hide the correct answer” - a common tool used by testmakers that you learned about in the Advanced Verbal lesson. In (A) this is the modifier, “one clapboard at a time” – a rhetorical device used to emphasize how the new immigrants are leading the urban renewal. While you have surely seen such a structure in your reading, it is not common and as a result many students will eliminate it offhand. However (A) is correct and all the other answer choices contain fatal flaws. In (B) and (C) the “with one clapboard house at a time” is illogical and nonsensical. There is nothing in the sentence that is done “with one house at a time” The urban renewal is being led by immigrants “one house at a time” not “with one house at a time”. This is a good example of when you need to use logic and meaning to determine whether a decision point is correct. In (D), the past perfect tense “had been” is clearly wrong as the first part of the sentence states that it is going on right now and there is no point in the past for the past perfect to refer to. In (E), the correct present perfect is used but the sentence illogically suggests that the renewal was led by “one clapboard house at a time”. Only (A) has a grammatically correct structure that conveys a logical meaning. Answer is (A).