Dear Friends,
Here is a detailed explanation to this question-
Sajjad1994 wrote:
Jessica Mitford wrote The American Way of Death, a best-selling book that led eventually to an official investigation of the funeral industry.
A. that led eventually
B. that had led eventually
C. that eventually led
D. which eventually led
E. who eventually led
Concepts tested here: Tenses + Pronouns + Awkwardness/Redundancy• The "adverb + verb" construction is preferred over the "verb + adverb" construction.
• Past perfect tense (marked by the use of helping verb "had") is used when a sentence contains two actions in the past; the helping verb "had" is used with the action in the "greater past".
• The simple past tense is used to refer to events that concluded in the past.
• “that” is used to provide information needed to preserve the core meaning of the sentence, and the “comma + which” construction is used to provide extra information.
• The pronoun “who” is used only for humans.
A: This answer choice uses the "verb ("led" in this sentence) + adverb ("eventually" in this sentence)" construction, leading to awkwardness; please remember, the "adverb + verb" construction is preferred over the "verb + adverb" construction.
B: This answer choice incorrectly uses the past perfect tense verb "had led" to refer to an action that concluded in the past; please remember, the simple past tense is used to refer to events that concluded in the past, and the past perfect tense (marked by the use of helping verb "had") is only used when a sentence contains two actions in the past; the helping verb "had" is used with the action in the "greater past".
C: Correct. This answer choice correctly uses the simple past tense verb "led" to refer to an action that concluded in the past. Further, Option C correctly uses "that" to provide information that is needed to preserve the core meaning of the sentence -- the fact that "The American Way of Death" eventually led to an official investigation of the funeral industry. Moreover, Option C correctly refers to the non-human noun "book" with "that". Besides, Option C correctly uses the "adverb ("eventually" in this sentence) + verb ("led" in this sentence)" construction, avoiding the awkwardness seen in Option A.
D: This answer choice incorrectly uses "which" to refer to information that is needed to preserve the core meaning of the sentence -- the fact that "The American Way of Death" eventually led to an official investigation of the funeral industry; please remember, “that” is used to provide information needed to preserve the core meaning of the sentence, and the “comma + which” construction is used to provide extra information.
E: This answer choice incorrectly refers to the non-human noun "book" with the word "who"; please remember, "who" can only be used to refer to human beings.
Hence, C is the best answer choice.To understand the concept of "Simple Tenses" on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~1 minute):
To understand the concept of "Which" vs "That" on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~2 minutes):
All the best!
Experts' Global Team