OFFICIAL EXPLANATIONProject SC Butler: Sentence Correction (SC1)
THE PROMPTQuote:
However much United States citizens may criticize the perils of capitalism and that the democracy is corrupted, it is rare to find organized national movements for a structure other than democracy.
Or maybe not so rare.
Autocracy, cult of personality, and bigotry are a potent brew.
• Meaning?
No matter how much U.S. citizens may criticize capitalism and democracy, it is rare to find organized national movements that pursue any structure other than democracy.
→ Yes, the writer of this sentence conflated capitalism and democracy.
The second part of the sentence does not mention capitalism.
One of my fields is political economy. Democracy does not require capitalism, a fact that may explain the writer's omission of capitalism from the second part of the sentence.
I mention this fact because a really well-written sentence would not "leave 'capitalism' hanging."
(I am trying to teach you pieces of rhetorical construction as we go.)
THE OPTIONSQuote:
A) However much United States citizens may criticize the perils of capitalism and that the democracy is corrupted,
• Parallelism error: a noun phrase is not parallel to a that-clause
→ Citizens criticize two things that are joined by the parallelism marker
and, but those two things are not parallel.
→ That is,
the perils [of capitalism] and
that the democracy is corrupted are not parallel
ELIMINATE A
Quote:
B) Although United States citizens may agree [THAT] capitalism is dangerous and democracy is corrupted,
→
Agree is a reporting verb in this case and must be followed by
that.→
Here and
here are lists of reporting verbs.
(In other contexts, agree can be followed by
an infinitive.)
ELIMINATE B
Quote:
C) Despite criticism by United States citizens to the extent of the perils of capitalism and corruption of democracy,
• Nonsensical
→ The italicized phrase makes this sentence nonsensical. The phrase means nothing in this context.
→ What, exactly, is "criticism to the extent of the perils"? Answer: nothing. There's no such thing.
(
Here is some information about "to the extent of." The phrase can be used—just not this way.
Quote:
D) However much United States citizens may criticize the perils of capitalism and the corruption of democracy,
• I do not see any errors
•
the perils of capitalism and
the corruption of democracy are parallel direct objects of the verb
may criticize•
However much is an adverb phrase that modifies
may criticize.
It does not matter how much U.S. citizens criticize aspects of capitalism and democracy: [no other political structure will take the place of democracy, an implied assertion that is backed up by the fact that] it is rare to find large groups pushing for any structure other than democracy.
(These sentences were written in 2012 and updated in 2019. January 6, 2021 might have changed their minds. Just sayin'.)
KEEP
Quote:
E) However many United States citizens had criticized the perils of capitalism and corruption of democracy,
•
However many is just fine.→ For countable nouns such as U.S. citizens, we use
however many to mean
no matter how many→ For uncountable nouns such as the
extent to which citizens criticize things, we use however much.
Extent is a degree or a magnitude. It's not countable.
• wrong verb tense
→
had criticized is past perfect, a tense that we use to describe the earlier of two actions in the past. No past action is signaled here.
→ Almost always, we need at least one simple past tense verb, timestamp, or sequence word in the sentence to describe the later-in-time event.
We do not have any of those three items.
→ The second part of the sentence uses the present tense
is.Corrected:
However many U.S. citizens had criticized the perils of capitalism and the corruption of democracy, it was rare to find organized national movements for a structure other than democracy.ELIMINATE E
The answer is D.NotesJust for the record: be aware that occasionally I find fairly well-written SC questions
whose official explanations are incorrect and/or whose options do not test what the authors believe that the options test.Such is the case in this instance.
I write my own OEs and do not use their OEs for a reason.
I also correct (i.e.,
change) the incorrect options.
Perhaps it would be wise to think twice about quoting the OEs that you find for questions—especially when such quotation is done without explanation or attribution . . . especially when there is a very good chance that the OE and/or options are wrong.
What, for example, does "changes the meaning" mean?
To what meaning are we referring?
Now, if an option creates illogical or nonsensical meaning, we say so.
And we say
why. Alternatively, in the very rare case that the nonunderlined part commits us to a particular meaning that insertion of the option contradicts, then "changes the meaning" is fair game, but we still must explain that the nonunderlined part commits us to XYZ meaning, which option ___ contradicts because ______.
We can infer the intended meaning from all five options and ultimately from the grammatical and most rhetorically effective sentence.
The grammatical and stylistically superior option contains the intended meaning.There is nothing special about option A.I know that many (most?) of you are taught that the meaning of option A must not be changed.
Please, stop believing that myth.
I've written other posts about this issue.
Use GMAT Club's awesome
search function to find those posts.
A few of you did not consult (or perhaps wisely did not repeat) the incorrect OE.
Those of you who got 90% of the explanation correct and did not repeat the inaccurate other OE get kudos.
I gave fair warning a couple of posts ago.
COMMENTSzhanbo , although I PMed you with the answer so that I could avoid giving away the OA, I'll answer here, too: yes, option B would be correct if the word
that were included.
Excellent question.
Sumi1010 , thanks for being helpful.
Your answer and analysis are thoughtful, as usual.
I am glad to see veterans along with occasional visitors.
(This far-flung SC Butler crew is pretty awesome, if you ask me.)
As always, I extend a standing invitation to aspirants to post.
Take a risk!
In the United States at the moment, seditious thugs operating in an uncontrolled pandemic remind me that tomorrow is not guaranteed.
So live today.
And stay as safe as you can, please.