gmatsheeba wrote:
An emerging hypothesis about the origins of dyslexia proposes that the environmental distractions present in classrooms and other settings may be so overwhelming they interfere with the ability of some subjects for recognizing patterns and, the result is, to identify printed letters and words.
A.they interfere with the ability of some subjects for recognizing patterns and, the result is, to identify
B.that they interfere with the ability of some subjects to recognize patterns and, as a result, to identify
C.that they interfere with the ability of some subjects to recognize patterns and, the result, they cannot identify
D.that they interfere with the ability of some subjects to recognize patterns, and result in not identifying
E.as to interfere with the ability of some subjects for recognizing patterns, resulting in the inability to identify
Dear
gmatsheeba,
I'm happy to help with this.
This is a great question: the official questions are always so good!! (As a GMAT practice question writer myself, it always inspires me to see how good their questions are!!)
This question is loaded with idioms. Here's a free GMAT idiom ebook:
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2013/gmat-idiom-ebook/Idiom #1:
so [adjective] thatThe participle "
overwhelming" serves as an adjective here. Because we have the word "
so", we need the word "
that". Another option would be
so [adjective] as to, but that's not an option here. See:
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2012/so-lets-talk-about-so/Both
(A) &
(E) leave out the word "
that", so they are incorrect.
Idiom #2: "
able to"/ "
ability to[/b]"
The words "able" and "ability" demand the infinitive. See:
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2012/verbs-that ... -the-gmat/
The construction "ability to do something" is correct, and the construction "ability for doing something" is wrong 100% of the time. Both [b](A) &
(E) make this mistake, so again, we eliminate those two.
Now, it gets interesting --- the remaining choices are all grammatically and idiomatically correct, and (as it typical of a good GMAT question) we have to engage the issue of
meaning. The differences are all right at the end -----
(B) "...
and, as a result, to identify ...
(C) "...
and they cannot identify ...
(D) "...
and and result in not identifying ....
First of all, choice
(C) makes a trainwreck pronoun mistake --- the first word "
they" refers to the "
distractions", and this word "
they" at the end refers to the "
subjects" --- same pronoun referring to two different antecedents in two places: a lethal pronoun mistake. Choice
(C) is out. See
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2013/gmat-pronoun-traps/Choice
(D) has the verb "
result", so the subject is "
they", which stands for "
environmental distractions" ---- if we plug this in, we get
"....
environmental distractions result in not identifying printed letters and words"
Something is funky about that ---do you see? The "
environmental distractions" result in WHO "
not identifying printed letters and words"??? I mean, yes, we know they mean the "
subjects", but a grammatically tight sentence should leave that sort of ambiguity hanging. A good sentence say what it means and means what it says. That's what's wrong with
(D).
Meanwhile, choice
(B) is grammatically and logically correct, the best answer.
Does this make sense?
Mike