OFFICIAL EXPLANATIONProject SC Butler: Sentence Correction (SC2)
THE PROMPTQuote:
Growing economic woes and competition could be pushing accountants to finagle their clients’ records; accountants can, for example, help their frustrated clients write off certain luxurious purchases and justify them as business expenses.
• Issues tested?
Independent clauses
Comma splices
Usage of the semicolon
Pronoun and antecedent ("which)
THE OPTIONSQuote:
A) Growing economic woes and competition could be pushing accountants to finagle their clients’ records; accountants can, for example, help their frustrated clients write off certain luxurious purchases and justify them as business expenses.
• I do not see any errors
→ a semicolon is used correctly to join two independent and related clauses
KEEP
Quote:
B) Growing economic woes and competition could be pushing accountants to finagle their clients’ records, as an example, they can help their frustrated clients write off certain luxurious purchases and justify them as business expenses.
• Comma splice error
→ we cannot join two independent clauses with nothing more than a comma.
When two full sentences are adjacent, we must connect them with: (1) [comma + conjunction (and, but, or)] or (2) a semicolon (and no coordinating conjunction)
Wrong: Maya's boss is ruthless, yesterday, he announced that no employee could wear a mask in the office.
Correct: Maya's boss is ruthless, and yesterday she quit when he announced that no employee could wear a mask in the office.
Correct: Maya's boss is ruthless; yesterday, for example, he announced that no employee could wear a mask in the office.
ELIMINATE B
Quote:
C) Growing economic woes and competition could be pushing accountants to finagle their clients’ records, like they can help their frustrated clients write off certain luxurious purchases and justify them as business expenses.
• this option, too, presents a comma splice (two full clauses "stuck" together improperly by nothing more than a comma)
•
like is misused
→ the word
like should be used to compare two nouns
→ nouns are not being compared in this sentence
→
such as is preferred to
like when introducing examples
ELIMINATE C
Quote:
D) Growing economic woes and competition could be pushing accountants to finagle their clients' records; which might include that they their frustrated clients write off certain luxurious purchases and justify them as business expenses.
• a semicolon must join independent clauses, and in this sentence we do not have two independent clauses
(IC's contain a subject and working verb and can stand on their own.)
→ which might include that the accounts ("they") _____ what?
This material is verbatim; I think the authors forgot to insert a verb.
→
which has no antecedent
which must stand for a noun;
which cannot stand in for a preceding clause or the unstated idea of that previous clause
This
which refers to
the fact that accountants might be finagling their clients' records
But the words
the fact that do not exist in this sentence.
ELIMINATE D
Quote:
E) Growing economic woes and competition could be pushing accountants to finagle their clients’ records, such as to be helping their frustrated clients write off certain luxurious purchases and justify them as business expenses.
•
such as to be helping is a hot mess (in the
OG, this phrase would be called "wordy" or "awkward" or both)
→ correct: such as helping their clients . . .
→ correct: such as to help their frustrated clients
ELIMINATE E
The correct answer is A.COMMENTSSantoshSukumaran , welcome to SC Butler.
Good question.
No,
they in options B, C, and E would not constitute pronoun ambiguity:
(1)
their in the non-underlined portion clearly refers to accountants
(2) the third person plural pronoun is now "used up." Any pronoun such as
they must refer to accountants.
Option D is a text error. (I've checked three places. The sentence is incomplete.)
I like the different approaches that I see.
These answers range from very good to excellent.
You get a smiley face if you kinda explained, and kudos if you explained well.
Nice work!