OFFICIAL EXPLANATIONProject SC Butler: Sentence Correction (SC1)
THE PROMPTQuote:
Many environmental scientists believe that global warming could lead to increased precipitation, as well as increased evaporation, a decline in soil moisture, and a resulting increasing of desert lands into current rangelands.
• issues tested: Noun phrase parallelism and meaning
• Meaning of the sentence?
Scientists believe that global warming could lead to some events:
1) more precipitation / an increase in precipitation
2) more evaporation / an increase in evaporation
3) less soil moisture / a decline in soil moisture
4) more desert land and less rangeland / an expansion of desert lands into current rangelands
•
resulting is in every answer option
-- the spread of desert lands into current rangelands is caused by the other three things
-- When you see the word
resulting or any variation of the word (resultant, result), you are on notice.
The sentence probably expresses cause and result, and you had better make sure that the option you choose conveys that logic.
• "dedicated nouns" vs. gerunds (verbING)
-- GMAC prefers a "normal" or dedicated noun to a noun made from adding --ING to a verb. (GMAC's preference is in line with good writing.)
--
expansion is a dedicated noun.
Increasing is a noun formed by adding --ING to the verb
increase.
THE OPTIONSQuote:
A) increased precipitation, as well as increased evaporation, a decline in soil moisture, and a resulting increasing
•
as well as makes this option suspect, though
as well as is not always wrong.
-- This list, for example, is correct: Good diets consist of protein, fruits and vegetables, and grains, as well as small amounts of healthy fats
-- But if you can see that the first three items cause the fourth, then rule out
as well as. The phrase is not telling us about less important items on a list (that follow
as well as)
•
resulting increasing is horrible (just a heads up that two ING words are almost never placed back-to-back)
•
resulting is okay. It's in every single answer. We can put an adjective ("resulting") in front of a noun in a list of nouns even if the other nouns don't have adjectives.
• The problem is
increasing, which is an adjective, not a noun, and thus not parallel with the nouns
precipitation, evaporation, and
declineELIMINATE A
Quote:
B) an increase in precipitation and evaporation, a decline in soil moisture, and a resulting expansion
• looks okay
• we have three parallel nouns:
increase, decline, and
expansion• as a bonus, option B is more concise than the other options
KEEP
Quote:
C) an increase in precipitation and evaporation, declining soil moisture, and a resulting expansion
•
an increase in is is not parallel to
decliningELIMINATE
Quote:
D) increasing precipitation, as well as increased evaporation, a decline in soil moisture, and a resulting increasing
•
as well as makes this answer suspect
•
increasing is not a noun. We do not put an article such as "an" or "the" in front of it. Similar to option A, increasing is not parallel to precipitation, evaporation, and decline
ELIMINATE D
Quote:
E) increasing precipitation, increasing evaporation, decreasing soil moisture, and therefore a resulting expansion
[/quote]
• the nouns are all parallel, but . . .
•
therefore and
resulting are redundant
The best answer is BI don't think that the state of ongoing events suggested in option E is easy to dismiss as wrong.
The scientists are predicting; they may well mean continuously
increasing precipitation. We don't know.
We do know that redundancy kills option D especially when D is compared to B.
COMMENTSCodebug4it and
sofia2288 , welcome to SC Butler.
These answers range from good to excellent. Kudos to all