Establishing goals for a nonprofit organization is often different

KAPLAN OFFICIAL EXPLANATION

(D)

Step 1: Read the Original Sentence Carefully, Looking for Errors

The fact that the word “than” is underlined is a clue that there may be a comparison problem here. When one thing (a noun) is said to differ from another, the correct phrase is different from, not “different than.” In this sentence, the -ing words “[e]stablishing” and “setting” are verb forms that function as nouns, so the comparison needs to use from, not “than.”

Step 2: Scan and Group the Answer Choices

There’s a 3-2 split between the choices that use “from,” (C), (D), and (E), and the choices that use “than,” (A) and (B).

Step 3: Eliminate Choices Until Only One Remains

Eliminate (A) and (B) for being on the wrong side of the split. (C) compares “[e]stablishing” to “goals,” which would not be parallel, so this choice is incorrect. By introducing “the” and “of,” (E) violates parallelism and is unnecessarily wordy. Thus, (D) is correct. Confirm this by reading it back into the sentence:

Establishing goals for a nonprofit organization is often different from setting goals for a profit-making enterprise because the stakeholders of the former may be more varied.