warrior1991 , you wrote
warrior1991 wrote:
Hi
generis While I was going through the question, I realized that I have seen the same question before.
https://gmatclub.com/forum/an-entrepren ... 40316.htmlWith due respect , just pointing out that the same question was posted by you earlier. I think we can merge these 2 questions.
*facepalm*
I searched! Three ways! Rats.
Thank you,
warrior1991 . You are gracious.
And to all: I apologize for the duplicate.
Bunuel is the master of merging. (I'm decent at doing so, but he's the master. )
I will ask him to merge the threads and preserve this OE.
OFFICIAL EXPLANATIONProject SC Butler: Sentence Correction (SC2)
THE PROMPTQuote:
An entrepreneur seeking a loan from a financial institution will find it difficult to persuade a lender if there is a lacking concrete business plan to prove his or her potential for success.
THE OPTIONSQuote:
A) if there is a lacking concrete business plan to prove
•
a lacking incorrectly and nonsensically modifies
business plan→
a lacking concrete business plan could only mean a deficient concrete business plan, but in that case,
deficient is much better than
lacking→ the usage is not standard. Standard usage includes:
The lack of a concrete business plan . . .
→ __ING words (participles) can modify the nouns that the participles precede:
a hovering aircraft, a speeding train(Some of you have been taught that verbING words can modify only words that precede them. Not correct.)
→ but there is no such thing as "a lacking" noun.
There can be A/THE lack OF [a] noun:
lack of honor, lack of patriotism, lack of empathy, for lack of a conscience, for lack of a better word → be careful when you see
there is or
there are.Typically, these two phrases make a sentence needlessly wordy and rhetorically/stylistically inelegant, a situation evident in this option.
• setting aside the noun problem, the phrase
if there is a lacking is beyond awkward. Its diction is a stylistic disaster.
ELIMINATE A
Quote:
B) unless there will be a concrete business plan to prove
• The logic of the verb tenses in the conditional is incorrectly reversed.
→ The idiomatic structure of UNLESS is
UNLESS X happens, Y will/will not happen.Unless THIS thing happens, THAT thing will/will not happen.Unless X happens [present tense], Y will/will not happen[future tense]X = business plan
Y = convince a lender
→ Transpose the logic:
Y will not happen unless X happens. An entrepreneur will not convince a lender unless there is a concrete business plan.This sentence reverses the sequential X and Y elements.
ELIMINATE B
• UNLESS
On
dave13 's excellent and generously offered thread, SC Tips & Tricks (the whole thread starts
here) , he posted a good video about conditionals that use
unless. That video is
here.
Quote:
C) if there is an absence of a concrete business plan to prove
• grammatical, but "there is an absence of" is unnecessarily long and unwieldy. Nor is this usage standard in this sentence.
We never eliminate an option on the basis of awkwardness or wordiness on the first pass.KEEP C, but look for a better option
Quote:
D) without a concrete business plan that proves
• I do not see any errors
• This option is clear and concise. No other option even comes close to the rhetorical effectiveness of option D.
→ Eliminate C.
→
without (in D) is more clear, direct, and concise than
if there is an absence of (in C)
ELIMINATE C, KEEP D
Quote:
E) in the case there is not a business plan proving
• Now that we have seen option D, compare option E to option D
Option D wins. It is clear and concise.
→
Without is more concise and effective than
in the case there is not→
in the case there is not is very close to making little contextual sense at all
The best answer is D. COMMENTS(I am writing as if the threads were combined.)
Ever since the election and as the pandemic spiraled out of control in my state, I have been a little flighty.
I forgot that I'd posted this question.
So.
SofiaSaini and
mcmoorthy , welcome to SC Butler.
Most of these answers range from good to very good. Nice work.