On the Scottish island of Uist, conservationists have spent many years

KAPLAN OFFICIAL EXPLANATION

(D)

Step 1: Read the Original Sentence Carefully, Looking for Errors

The underlined portion begins with “for trapping European hedgehogs,” which is the first of two actions that are part of the conservationists’ plan. The second action comes at the end of the sentence: “relocate them.” (To see this two-part construction, it may help to read the sentence without the modifying “which . . .” clause between commas.) However, “for trapping” and “relocate” are not parallel. Furthermore, the phrase “plans for trapping” is incorrect. Idiomatically, it’s proper to say plans to do something instead of plans for doing something.

Step 2: Scan and Group the Answer Choices

(A) and (B) use “for trapping,” while (C), (D), and (E) use “to trap.”

Step 3: Eliminate Choices Until Only One Remains

Eliminate (A) for using “for trapping,” which is idiomatically incorrect and not parallel to “relocate” at the end. (B) adds some unnecessary words that do nothing to fix either issue. Eliminate (B).

(C), (D), and (E) begin with “to trap,” which properly creates the parallel construction “plans to trap . . . and relocate.” However, (C) changes “which are” to “being.” This creates the phrase “being invasive . . . and have been blamed,” which is not parallel. Eliminate (C). And (E) removes the verb altogether, creating the phrase “invasive . . . and have been blamed.” That’s an illogical combination of an adjective and a verb. Eliminate (E). (D) remains and is the correct answer. Read it back into the original sentence to confirm:

On the Scottish island of Uist, conservationists have spent many years working on plans to trap European hedgehogs, which are invasive to Uist and have been blamed for reducing the population of several wading birds, and relocate them to the mainland.