noboru wrote:
311. Foreign investors, because of their growing confidence in their capability for making profitable investments in the United States, have been led to move from passive involvement in commercial real estate partnerships to active development of their own increasingly ambitious projects.
(A) Foreign investors, because of their growing confidence in their capability for making profitable investments in the United States, have been led
(B) Foreign investors, growing confident about their capability for making profitable investments in the United States, has led them
(C) Growing confidence in their ability to make profitable investments in the United States has led foreign investors
(D) Growing confidence in their ability for making profitable investments in the United States have led foreign investors
(E) Growing confident about their capabilities for making profitable investments in the United States, foreign investors have been led
capability often refers to one's maximum ability, to one's limits of capacity for doing/accomplishing something;
on the other hand, ability is more applicable to the generic, non-quantifiable quality of being able to do something/capable of doing something
Ability is closer to a talent, a natural skill which is hard to quantify, whereas capability is more applicable to enterprizes, rather than persons, or, if it is applied to a person, it may more often reflect on limitations, rather than talents.
A. We need ability.
B. Awkward construction.
C. Correct. Ability to is the correct idiom.
D. Subject verb agreement.
E. Same as A.