+HOT Competition 4 Sep/9AM: In July 2015, several news organizations

Veritas Prep Explanation:

The correct answer is A.

This answer logically expresses that “carrying out a massive scheme” is what Najib Razak was “accused of.” It also uses the infinitive “to divert” appropriately to describe the purpose of that scheme.

Answer B illogically suggests that the news organizations “accused Najib Razak… to carry out a massive scheme” – in other words, that the accusation itself was part of the scheme, and that the scheme was conducted by the news organizations, rather than the prime minister, even though the scheme’s goal was to divert money to the prime minister’s bank accounts. Based on the surrounding context, this is not plausible. So B is wrong.

Answer C uses the unidiomatic phrasing “accused with” instead of the proper “accused of.” This answer also chooses the wordy and awkward noun phrase “the carrying out of” over the concise and appropriate gerund “carrying out.” In addition, it opts for the wordy and awkward “for the diverting of” instead of the concise and appropriate infinitive “to divert.” This last point is especially important, since this change reduces the clarity with which the sentence expresses the purpose of the scheme. While Answer C might not be the most grammatically-violative sentence ever written, it is worse in every possible respect than Answer A. Thus, with no good reason to switch from A to C, we can eliminate this latter choice from consideration.

Answer D uses the relative pronoun “who” in a manner that is a bit unclear. Does “1Malaysia Development Berhad” qualify as a person or people that could serve as the reference for the relative clause? Or does “who” skip back to the prime minister himself? It’s hard to say, and the ambiguity is problematic. Worse, the relative clause in this answer does not properly act as an object for the verb “accused,” resulting in an accusation that is unclear and a scheme that is not merely “accused” but instead a given fact. Finally, the concluding participle “diverting” seems as though it may modify the primary clause. If so, it suggests that the news organizations’ accusation, not the prime minister’s scheme, is what diverted the funds. This is at best ambiguous, and thus it is quite problematic.

Answer E, much like Answer B, illogically suggests that the news organizations, not the prime minister, are the ones who carried out the scheme to divert money into the prime minister’s bank accounts. This answer, like D, also does not properly provide an object for the verb “accused,” leaving a mystery around what, exactly, Najib Razak has been accused of.