Children whose parents have allergies will probably be allergic themse

Correct sequence of Tenses :

A. be allergic themselves, having once developed:"having once developed" is wrong usage.INCORRECT.

B. be allergic themselves as soon as they will develop : "will develop" is future well as "be" is simple present.Tenses mismatch. INCORRECT.

C.be allergic themselves as they develop : "be" is simple present "as they develop" is something in the future.Tenses mismatch.INCORRECT.

D. become allergic themselves having once developed: "become" is future well as "developed" is past.Tenses mismatch.INCORRECT.

E. become allergic themselves once they develop: "become" and "develop" both in the correct future tense. Tenses are in correct sequence.CORRECT.

Children whose parents have allergies will probably be allergic themselves, having once developed a minor infection such as a cold.


A. be allergic themselves, having once developed -- "having once" makes it seem like the children will develop minor infection only once in their lives

B. be allergic themselves as soon as they will develop --"they will" is wrong verb tense

C. be allergic themselves as they develop -- "as" conjunction makes it seem like allergy and minor infection happen simultaneously.

D. become allergic themselves having once developed -- same as A

E. become allergic themselves once they develop -- CORRECT, the conditional is met and verb tenses are right


So, answer is E.

Children whose parents have allergies will probably be allergic themselves, having once developed a minor infection such as a cold.

Subject verb pair exists for all the subject but there is error in tense form.
pronoun , Parallelism, Comparison & Idiomatic usage seems okay.
There is modifier error using "having" , it incorrectly modifies the sentences
Lets discuss option-wise.

A. be allergic themselves, having once developed

1. usage of "be " is inappropriate.
2. "having once developed" wrongly modifies the sentences.

- Incorrect

B. be allergic themselves as soon as they will develop

1. usage of "be " is inappropriate.
2. "as soon as" changes the meaning.

- Incorrect

C. be allergic themselves as they develop

1. usage of "be " is inappropriate.
2. "as" used incorrectly.

- Incorrect

D. become allergic themselves having once developed

1. " having once developed" modifies "themselves" which changed the meaning .

- Incorrect

E. become allergic themselves once they develop

1. Usage of "become" removes the previous error.
2. "once they develop" conveys clear meaning.

- Correct

IMO(E)

A. be allergic themselves, having once developed

B. be allergic themselves as soon as they will develop :

C. be allergic themselves as they develop : be is wrong usage

D. become allergic themselves having once developed

E. become allergic themselves once they develop :Correct

Answer E

Here's the official explanation provided by the GMAC for this question:

The point of this sentence is that in general, when or shortly after a child whose parents have allergies develops a minor infection, the child is likely to develop an allergy. The underlined portion of the sentence needs to clearly express the order of the events described and their implicit causal relationship.

Option A: This phrasing with the static verb to be fails to convey the intended idea that the children are likely to become allergic after developing a minor infection. Because having once is set off by a comma, the sentence confusingly seems to say that every child of parents who have allergies has once developed a minor infection.

Option B: The future tense will develop is inappropriate for the sentence's generalized description of past, present, and future cases. The will in the main body of the sentence indicates that the state of being allergic occurs in the future relative to the event of developing a minor infection. But the infection's development is not being said to occur in the future relative to any other event described, so the future form will develop should not be used.

Option C: The phrasing with the static verb to be and the conjunction as suggests that the children are allergic while developing a minor infection, but not necessarily after the infection ends. This phrasing fails to express the sequence of events: first the children develop an infection, and then as a result they become allergic.

Option D: The lack of a comma makes this phrasing hard to parse–themselves may be read incorrectly as modified by having once developed. The phrasing fails to convey the intended idea that having developed an infection causes the children to become allergic; the two events are not clearly connected.

Option E: Correct. The dynamic verb to become clearly conveys the intended idea of developing an allergy rather than merely having an allergy. The conjunction once and the simple present develop appropriately express the intended general time sequence: in many past, present, and future cases, an allergy arises during or shortly after a minor infection.

The correct answer is E.

Please note that I'm not the author of this explanation. I'm just posting it here since I believe it can help the community.

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