globaldesi wrote:
An analysis of the company’s documents reveals that their recent financial difficulties, culminating in the foreclosure on their property last week, was due not to irresponsible financial planning but was caused by unpredictable market fluctuations.
a) was due not to irresponsible financial planning but was caused by
b) was due not to irresponsible financial planning but to
c) was not due to irresponsible financial planning but caused by
d) were not due to irresponsible financial planning being caused by
e )were due not to irresponsible financial planning but to
STEP 1: CUT THE FLUFFThe first thing you should do after reading the initial sentence is to ignore the long modifier in the middle of the sentence. An analysis of the company’s documents reveals that their recent financial difficulties,
culminating in the foreclosure on their property last week,
was due not to irresponsible financial planning but was caused by unpredictable market fluctuations.
You are left with: An analysis of the company’s documents reveals that their recent financial difficulties
was due not to irresponsible financial planning but was caused by unpredictable market fluctuations.
Eliminate
all other "fluff": An analysis
of the company’s documents reveals that their
recent financial difficulties
was due not to irresponsible financial planning but was caused by unpredictable market fluctuations.
You are left with: An analysis reveals that their financial difficulties
was due not to irresponsible planning but was caused by market fluctuations.
STEP 2: SUBJECT-VERB"their financial difficulties
was" as soon as you see this I hope you heard the alarm bells: "MAY DAY MAY DAY we have SUBJECT-VERB DISAGREEMENT". Do not panic; we have practiced for this sort of event. "difficulties" is a plural noun, whereas "was" is a singular verb.
Choice A,B & C all repeat this mistake and we can get rid of them leaving us with D&E.
STEP 3: TRUST THE PROCESSChoosing between D&E was difficult for me. My ear told me that I prefer "not due to" in D. BUT
my ear is never part of my decision process as the golden rule (of @GMATNinja) is: 1. eliminate all definite errors & 2. pay attention to meaning.
Trusting in this process I noticed that
D changes the meaning. Therefore, I correctly chose
E.