GMATNinja Sir ,

Please throw some light here.

Not convinced with the OA

I think TommyWallach pretty much nailed it with this post. (D) and (E) are pretty close, but, as explained by BKimball in this post, (D) is the better of the two.

If you still aren't convinced, try to explain what's tripping you up, and we'll do our best to help!
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The more you will become proficient in pointing every error with an answer choice in the review process, the better you will learn SC and that too in accelerated way.

Canadian scientists have calculated that one human being should be struck every nine years by a meteorite, while each year sixteen buildings can be expected to sustain damage from such objects.
Should is used to denote Moral Obligation, which is clearly not the case here.

(A) one human being should be struck every nine years by a meteorite
Incorrect use of Should
“One human being” sounds awkward right? There will be one particular human being who will get struck once every nine years. – Incorrect due to meaning change.

(B) a human being should be struck by a meteorite once in every nine years
Incorrect use of Should.
Incorrect modifier – “once in every nine years”. This modifier seems to modify meteorite which comes once in every nine years. – Incorrect


(C) a meteorite will strike one human being once in every nine years
“One human being” sounds awkward right? There will be one particular human being who will get struck once every nine years. – Incorrect due to meaning change.
The sentence is of the construction - Canadian scientists have calculated that X while Y.
Y being the non underlined part is in passive voice.So, the X part should also be in the same voice.

(D) every nine years a human being will be struck by a meteorite
Best of all.

(E) every nine years a human being should be struck by a meteorite
Incorrect use of Should

Request Expert Reply:
Q1:
Can we say 'once' and 'every' is redundant in choice B and C?
Q2:
In the non-underlined part, the sentence is written as passive way. What if the underlined part is written as active voice like below?
F) a meteorite will strike a human being every nine years

POE on this one...we can eliminate purely on one word ..."should". The use of the indicative 'should' is totally nonsensical in many of the choices. That is, no scientist have calculated that someone SHOULD be struck every nine years.

Canadian scientists have calculated that one human being should be struck every nine years by a meteorite, while each year sixteen buildings can be expected to sustain damage from such objects.

(A) one human being should be struck every nine years by a meteorite X
(B) a human being should be struck by a meteorite once in every nine years X
(C) a meteorite will strike one human being once in every nine years X
-Here we don't have that 'should' issue, but the sentence is nonsensical in another way: it suggests that scientists calculate that A METEORITE ...awkward
(D) every nine years a human being will be struck by a meteorite CORRECT
(E) every nine years a human being should be struck by a meteorite X
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1) +1 to the question: does 'Once every nine year' have redundancy error?

2) Isn't 'will' used to represent things that are more definitive. For eg: 'The sun will rise'. 'The sun should rise' doesn't seem right.
One of the definition of 'Should' is 'what is probable or expected' as per webster. This seems more appropriate here.

Please help understand the nuance.

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