The Environmental Protection Agency frequently puts mandatory controls

Question

The Environmental Protection Agency frequently puts mandatory controls on toxic substances that present  as little risk as one in a million chances to cause  cancer.

(A) as little risk as one in a million chances to cause

(B) as little risk as one chance in a million of causing

(C) as little risk as one chance in a million that it will cause

(D) a risk as little as one chance in a million for causing

(E) a risk as little as one chance in a million for it to cause

daagh · Accepted Answer

The Environmental Protection Agency frequently puts mandatory controls on toxic substances that present  as little risk as one in a million chances to cause  cancer.

Before we get at the throat of this question, we must remember the fundamental rule that comparisons are a kind of parallel structures and therefore have to have balanced features on the sides side of the comparator. Here the comparator is 'as-as'. Now on to the choices.

A. as little risk as one in a million chances to cause ---  'little risk' is adjective plus noun, whereas one is just a noun.  
 
B. as little risk as one chance in a million of causing---  little risk is an adjective plus noun and one chance is also an adjective plus noun. Perfect balance

C. as little risk as one chance in a million that it will cause --  the problem is the word 'it'. 'It' can't stand for the plural 'substances' 
 
D. a risk as little as one chance in a million for causing ---  little is an adjective but one chance is an adjective plus noun
 
E. a risk as little as one chance in a million for it to cause ---  same structural error as in D. 
 
 Now, if time permits one can mull that, as substances are just substances and do not carry an intention to cause harm. Therefore, to cause, for causing and for it to cause are no good compared with 'of causing' in B in the given context

serbiano · Answer

Correct idioms are: RISK OF CAUSING and ONE CHANCE IN A MILLION

IMO B.

ExpertsGlobal5 · Answer

Dear Friends,

Here is a detailed explanation to this question-

Concepts tested here: Pronouns + Idioms

• “risk + of + present participle (“verb+ing” - “causing” in this sentence) is the correct, idiomatic construction.

A:  This answer choice incorrectly uses the unidiomatic construction “risk + infinitive verb form (“to + basic form of the verb” - “to + cause” in this sentence); remember, “risk + of + present participle (“verb+ing”) is the correct, idiomatic construction.

B:   Correct.  This answer choice avoids the pronoun error seen in Options C and E, as it uses no pronouns. Further, Option B correctly uses the idiomatic construction “risk +  of  + present participle (“verb+ing” - “causing” in this sentence). Additionally, Option B is free of any awkwardness or redundancy.

C:  This answer choice incorrectly refers to the plural noun “substances” with the singular pronoun “it”. Further, Option C uses the needlessly wordy phrase “that it will cause”, leading to awkwardness and redundancy.

D:  This answer choice incorrectly uses the unidiomatic construction “risk +  for  + present participle (“verb+ing” - “causing” in this sentence); remember, “risk +  of  + present participle (“verb+ing” - “causing” in this sentence) is the correct, idiomatic construction.

E:  This answer choice incorrectly refers to the plural noun “substances” with the singular pronoun “it”. Further, Option E incorrectly uses the unidiomatic construction “risk + for + infinitive verb form (“to + basic form of the verb” - “to + cause” in this sentence); remember, “risk + of + present participle (“verb+ing”) is the correct, idiomatic construction.

Hence, B is the best answer choice.

All the best!
Experts' Global Team

x2suresh · Answer

I will go with B.

"risk of causing" -- > correct idiom.

crejoc · Answer

nitindas.. it is better you kindly use the search feature of this forum, before posting a question.. typing few words from the question is more than enough to get results,

click here for explanations,
sc-risk-68446.html?highlight=the+environmental+protection+agency+frequently+puts+mandatory+controls+on+toxic+substances

serhio · Answer

The Environmental Protection Agency frequently puts mandatory controls on toxic substances that present  as little risk as one in a million chances to cause  cancer.

(A) as little risk as one in a million chances to cause

(B) as little risk as one chance in a million of causing

(C) as little risk as one chance in a million  that it will cause

(D)  a risk as little as  one chance in a million for causing

(E) a risk as little as one chance in a million  for it  to cause

BTW A and B. The correct idiom her is the risk of

amit2k9 · Answer

One is a million chance and risk of are the correct idioms.
 Hence B.

tuanquang269 · Answer

"it" in C and E has no antecedent. Eliminate them.

In A, "to cause" means purpose, not the intended meaning of sentence. In this case, we can use "chance to", England has a big chance to participate in World Cup 2016.

In statistic, we have to use "chance of". Another usage is also wrong such as "chance for", so eliminate D.

The comparison in all answer choice have no problem.

Please correct me if I'm wrong. Thanks. Hope that helps

JarvisR · Answer

The Environmental Protection Agency frequently puts mandatory controls on toxic substances that present  as little risk as one in a million chances to cause  cancer.

A. as little risk as one in a million chances to cause
 B. as little risk as one chance in a million of causing
 C. as little risk as one chance in a million that it will cause
D. a risk as little as one chance in a million for causing
E. a risk as little as one chance in a million for it to cause

1: The Environmental Protection Agency frequently puts mandatory controls on toxic substances.
The substances present   Risk of causing  cancer. 
2:to cause   /for causing are not correct usage here.
3: "it" here links to plural noun substances which is not correct.

Abhishek009 · Answer

The sentence check correct usage of 2 idiomatic forms -

1. As X as Y 
 2. Chance of ( meaning "likelihood", "probability")
 
  Among the given options only (B) matches ...

mbaaspirant80 · Answer

Correct Idiom: risk of causing. Ans. B
the word whose idiomatic usage is being tested is risk, not chance.
this is a bit hard to see in this particular sentence, so here's an analogy
as small a collection as three pirated albums has occasionally drawn the attention of the recording industry.
in this case, 'collection', not 'albums', is the subject of 'has drawn' (which can be inferred from the fact that 'has' is
singular).
this is the case because this sentence is equivalent to the following rearranged version:
a collection as small as three pirated albums has occasionally drawn the attention of the recording industry.
--
the same reasoning applies here; you're looking for idiomatic usage that agrees with 'risk', not 'chance'.
'chance to' is NOT used when 'chance' refers to a mathematical probability (as it does in this context). in the case of
mathematical probabilities, you can only use 'chance of'.
for instance, you can't say this treatment has a 70% chance to cure the disease; you have to say chance of curing.
the analogy is meant to show that the word "chance" is, in all of these choices, part of a modifier that is entirely
disposable.
the first three choices are analogous to my first sentence above:
original:
as little risk as one chance in a million of causing
analogy:
as small a collection as three pirated albums has occasionally drawn...
original:
a risk as little as one chance in a million for causing (note this is unidiomatic, but the correspondence is the same)
analogy:
a collection as small as three pirated albums has occasionally drawn
compare these side-by-side. note that the throwaway modifiers are in the same places.
the grammar is not quite the same (the second part is a prepositional phrase in the original, but a verb in the
analogy). however, the correspondence is exactly the same, so the analogy is good enough for illustrative purposes.

anairamitch1804 · Answer

The idiom here is RISK + OF + VERBing:

...substances that present as little RISK...OF CAUSING cancer.

Only B offers the correct idiom.

The correct answer is B.

svasan05 · Answer

The Environmental Protection Agency frequently puts mandatory controls on toxic substances that present  as little risk as one in a million chances to cause  cancer.

(A) as little risk as one in a million chances to cause  "risk to cause" is idiomatically incorrect - the correct idiom is "risk of causing". Eliminate.

(B) as little risk as one chance in a million of causing  Correct answer.

(C) as little risk as one chance in a million that it will cause  "it" appears to refer to the EPA. Eliminate.

(D) a risk as little as one chance in a million for causing  "risk for causing" is incorrect - the correct usage is "risk of causing".

(E) a risk as little as one chance in a million for it to cause  "it" appears to refer to the EPA. Eliminate.

Hope this helps.

sssanskaar2 · Answer

Dear experts,

In "A is as XYZ as B", in which XYZ is a property, A and B are parallel and not XYZ and B.

For ex- Sam is as tall as Michael. Here, Sam and Michael are parallel and not "tall" and Michael.

Hence, shouldn't we use option D: a risk as little as <something>? (Yes, the usage of "risk.... for causing" is incorrect, but i wanted to know more on the usage of as x as y)

EducationAisle pls help

EducationAisle · Answer

Yeah, this is equivalent to saying:

Sam is as tall as Michael (is).

Similarly, with B, we can look at it as:

....substances present as little risk as one chance in a million (presents)....

Idiomatic usage would be an easy way to eliminate D. The correct idiom is  risk  of   and not  risk  for  .

tusoa911 · Answer

But ...we say: You can do as good as I can do. You may say parallel “ you can do ” vs. "i can do.” But referring this example, "as good as i can do." does not work smoothy based on your rule. reagards. thanks.

ExpertsGlobal5 · Answer

Hello  tusoa911 ,

We hope this finds you well.

Having gone through the question, we believe we can clear up this doubt.

A more accurate way to look at this construction is that the things being compared must maintain parallelism.

In your example, the comparison is between the clauses "You can do" and "I can do", and in this question, the comparison is between the nouns "risk" and "one chance in a million", which both refer to a probability.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
Experts' Global Team

gmatimothy · Answer

Risk...for = incorrect

Shivangisharmaa · Answer

In a similar sentence (similar in comparative form), the only divide between the correct option choice (c) and the incorrect options choice (d) is idiomatic usage of the idiom.
(c)- X as prominently as Y
(d)- as prominently X as Y
Here, the correct choice uses the latter construction, deemed incorrect in the sentence that I am referring to.
Kindly help with this seeming contradiction and guide.

the sentence I am referring to:
https://gmatclub.com/forum/according-to ... 89303.html

The Environmental Protection Agency frequently puts mandatory controls

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The Environmental Protection Agency frequently puts mandatory controls

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