Ifemelu, the female protagonist in Nigerian novel Americanah, question

Question

Project SC Butler: Day 73: Sentence Correction (SC2) 
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Ifemelu, the female protagonist in Nigerian novel Americanah, questions  if she can truly build a life for herself in the United States and feeling  a sense of connection and belonging to a place so far removed from her native country Nigeria.

A. if she can truly build a life for herself in the United States and feeling

B. whether she can truly build a life for herself in the United States and feel

C. whether or not she has the capacity to build a life for herself in the United States and can feel

D. her ability for truly building a life for herself in the United States and feeling

E. the capability for her to truly build a life for herself in the United States and feel

The best/excellent answers get kudos, which will be  awarded  after   the answer is revealed. 
There may be no best/excellent answers, or a there may be a few excellent answers!

MofeBhatia · Accepted Answer

Ifemelu, the female protagonist in Nigerian novel Americanah, questions if she can truly build a life for herself in the United States and feeling a sense of connection and belonging to a place so far removed from her native country Nigeria.

Meaning - Ifemelu is questioning whether she can build a life for herself and feel a connection to her native country

A. if she can truly build a life for herself in the United States and feeling -  IF is used only for conditional expressions not
for questioning

B. whether she can truly build a life for herself in the United States and feel -  Correct

C. whether or not she has the capacity to build a life for herself in the United States and can feel -  "Whether or not" is 
 not correct the usage of whether."Not" is redundant . Whether itself means uncertainty.

D. her ability for truly building a life for herself in the United States and feeling -  Correct idiom is ability to X and Y. 
 
E. the capability for her to truly build a life for herself in the United States and feel -  capability of her would have been correct.

Mandy001 · Answer

The answer is option B

Ifemelu, the female protagonist in Nigerian novel Americanah, questions  if she can truly build a life for herself in the United States and feeling  a sense of connection and belonging to a place so far removed from her native country Nigeria.

A. if she can truly build a life for herself in the United States and feeling

B. whether she can truly build a life for herself in the United States and feel

C. whether or not she has the capacity to build a life for herself in the United States and can feel

D. her ability for truly building a life for herself in the United States and feeling

E. the capability for her to truly build a life for herself in the United States and feel

Just by reading this, we can sense that the word 'if' really makes it a bit annoying. Since the sentence is relayed in 3rd person form, the statement (spoken or unspoken form) must be in the form of a statement or an answer and not a question which we get a sense when the underlined part starts with if. 
So rule out option A.

You can easily rule out all other options except for B just simply because the sentence is not talking about her capacity, ability or capability. It will be like adding a new dimension to the statement which we really do not want.

shinichikudo · Answer

Since GMAT prefers whether and not if, so we can eliminate  A, C, E .

Only B and D left.

We will go for  answer B  since B uses whether , and the verbs are parallel.

Answer D uses V-ing (building - feeling), we avoid V-ing in SC as much as possible.

GiuPao94 · Answer

A. if she can truly build a life for herself in the United States and feeling
Absence of parallelism between build and feeling

B. whether she can truly build a life for herself in the United States and feel
Correct choice, the two verbs are parallel, the sentence makes sense and whether fit perfectly

C. whether or not she has the capacity to build a life for herself in the United States and can feel
Whether or not is wordy and "can feel" change the meaning of the parallelism

D. her ability for truly building a life for herself in the United States and feeling 
She cannot question her ability; her ability cannot answer her, so it is senseless

E. the capability for her to truly build a life for herself in the United States and feel
tha capability for her is awkard and questioning a capability doen't make sense.

I would choose B

Shrinidhi · Answer

The correct usage must be "whether" as it signefies two comparable conditions unlike "if" which follows the structure if condition...then result... This is incorrectly uses in option A.

The correct option must use "whether" and correct parallel structure- whether she can truly build a life....and feel...
So the Option B is correct.

Posted from my mobile device

aragonn · Answer

Official Explanation: 
The rule to follow here is the correct use of an idiom; the verb “questions” should be followed by the 
word “whether” not “if”, which leads us to answers (B) and (C). (C) is eliminated because it doesn’t 
correctly use parallelism: to build must be followed by to feel.

hiranmay · Answer

Ifemelu, the female protagonist in Nigerian novel Americanah, questions  if she can truly build a life for herself in the United States and feeling  a sense of connection and belonging to a place so far removed from her native country Nigeria.

A.  if  she can truly build a life for herself in the United States and  feeling  --> question should be asked using "whether"

B. whether she can truly build a life for herself in the United States and feel -->  correct

C.  whether or not  she has the capacity to build a life for herself in the United States and can feel --> "whether or not" is wrong usage, use only "whether" to put question

D. her  ability for  truly building a life for herself in the United States and feeling --> "ability for" is wrong idiom: "ability to" is right idiom

E. the  capability for  her to truly build a life for herself in the United States and feel--> "capability for" is wrong idiom: "capability of" is right idiom

PJR · Answer

At first glance, I also chose B but how "  belonging   to a place so far removed from her native country Nigeria" is parallel with "whether she can truly  build  a life for herself in the United States and  feel "?

VerbalBot · Answer

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Ifemelu, the female protagonist in Nigerian novel Americanah, question

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Ifemelu, the female protagonist in Nigerian novel Americanah, question

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