On this issue, this state’s elected officials ignored the wishes of

Hi,

I understood why C is correct. Could you please tell me why is A, B, D & E are incorrect?

Regards
Kunal

C and E are both grammatically correct. The only problem I have with C is it is missing the key information "on this issue" tells me that E should be the correct answer. A, B and D are definitely not in contention.

Hello, Kunal. I will draw attention to the problematic areas of the other answer choices below.

A which clause cannot be used to modify an action (verb), and it would not make sense to indicate that the electorate cannot reasonably be disputed.

The idiom appears to be ignoring on, which would be incorrect. You could place commas around the prepositional phrase and retain the vital meaning, but I would still say the construct was less direct and harder to follow: This state's elected officials, ignoring, on this issue, the wishes of their electorate...

There is nothing wrong with this that clause as the subject, and the language is straightforward in the S-V-DO construct.

If you look at the barebones structure of the main clause, you get a comma error: the wishes of the electorate were ignored, and cannot reasonably be disputed... If the sentence is supposed to indicate that the wishes were ignored and that fact cannot be disputed, then we either need a subject for the second independent clause or we need to delete the comma.

Why did I not put any text in red? Because there is, in fact, nothing grammatically wrong with this choice. However, the passive construct is adopted instead of the active one in (C); here, we have wishes that were ignored, whereas (C) has officials doing the ignoring. Also, it is harder to follow left-branching sentences than their active, right-branching counterparts. We get a lot of information between wishes and officials before we reach the verb of the main clause. That is, by the time we reach that verb, we are just beginning to wrap our head around the subject. Now, I have seen official questions that opt for a longer construct than a condensed or concise one, especially when it comes to possessive nouns, but in this case, I see no reason why (C) would not be preferred over (E) (notwithstanding the omitted on this issue).

I hope that helps. If anyone feels strongly about (E), I would be open to hearing your thoughts.

- Andrew

Can someone please explain if it is okay to remove some information?

On this issue

C & E differ only in this info

To be honest, ajaygaur319, I doubt an official question would remove that part from choice (C) and keep it in the rest, opening the door to the notion that it was essential to the intended meaning of the sentence. In fact, there is a difference between saying that on this [specific] issue, officials ignored something or in general, officials ignored something. The fact that there is a discrepancy does not void the question or what anyone can learn from it. Understanding the relative appeal or drawback of any given answer choice is what SC is all about, not just getting the right answer and moving on. In this particular case, I judged the active construct of (C), with its omission of the prepositional phrase, as the lesser of two evils compared to the passive, harder-to-follow construct of (E) and its inclusion of the same. I am not anti-(E). I just think (C) is better.

- Andrew

So there are 2 scenarios:
1. Omit some info in the question and have the sentence in active voice
2. Don't omit anything and have it in passive voice

I'll go for 2 anytime because rejection just because of passive-ness is not a good idea, I feel.

I think it is wise to adapt your knowledge and approach to whatever situation the question at hand presents. I did not reject choice (E) simply because it adopts the passive voice. The primary determinant was its spread-out content within the that clause, content that I felt made the sentence on the whole a bit harder to follow than the alternative presented in (C). I have been careful to outline my exact reasons for preferring one choice over another, but nowhere have I written that (E) is wrong. Given these two possibilities within this context, I cast my vote for (C), nothing more. I hope you can appreciate the points I have brought up above so that you can make an informed decision as to how you may approach a similar problem down the road.

Good luck with your studies.

- Andrew