George Washington dedicated his life to the economic strengthening of

Hi Fozzy,

George Washington Carver dedicated his life to the economic strengthening of the South with improvement of soil and diversification of crops.

This is my take on this one. Since the meaning of the sentence is pretty simple to understand, let’s directly get to the Error Analysis.

ERROR ANALYSIS:

1. The phrase “the economic strengthening of the South” clearly denotes that Carver dedicated his life to “strengthening the economy of the South”. This phrase comes more naturally and is more precise.
2. The preposition “with” now denotes that Carver dedicated his life to strengthening the economy of the South “along with” improvement of soil and diversification of soils. It does not say that by doing these two things, he plans to strengthen the economy. “with” rather suggest that these two are additional things along with strengthening the economy of the South that Carver dedicated his life to.

PoE:

(A) the economic strengthening of the South with improvement of soil and diversification of crops: Incorrect for the reason stated above

(B) strengthening the economy in the South with soil improvement and the diversification of crops: Incorrect.
1. Repeats the preposition error of choice A.
2. “soil improvement” is not parallel to “the diversification of crops”.

(C) strengthening the economy of the South through soil improvement and crop diversification: Correct. This choice uses the correct expression and maintains conciseness even in parallelism.

(D) the strengthening of the economy of the South through improving soil and crop diversifying: Incorrect.
1. Repeats the awkward phrasing error of Choice A.
2. “improving soil” and “crop diversifying” are not parallel.

(E) the economic strengthening in the South with improving soil and diversifying crops: Incorrect. Repeats the preposition error of Choice A.
Hope this helps.
Thanks.
Shraddha
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"strengthening the economy": the object of strengthening is economy - what is strengthened? The economy is strengthened.
"economic strengthening": economic is the adjective of strengthening - how was the strengthening? It was economic (does not make any sense though - "economical" would still make some sense)
In the first case, you do not know how was the strengthening and the second you do not know what was strengthened.

A, E - have awkward word construction - 'economic strengthening' - out

D - not || - improving soil and diversifying crop is required here
B - not || - soil improvement and crop diversification is required here

so C best choice.

Choice "C" looks the best...

But wonder wy "economic strengthening" is a wrong construction?
have heard of the construction "economic diversification"

Although the word “strengthening” is preceded by the word “to” in this example, there is no special form you need to learn. Here, “strengthening” is an activity. George Washington Carver dedicated his life to that activity. In other words, “strengthening” is a noun in this sentence. We could just as well say “George dedicated his life to the improvement of the soil.”

“To strengthening” is not a correct verb form under any circumstances.
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OA indeed is C

Here is the comment of MGMAT instructors

https://www.manhattangmat.com/forums/geo ... t2122.html

Hope that helps
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Can someone explain the usage of "through" and "with" in this sentence C is best. But an elaborate explanation on this concept will help. Thanks

The other split is between economic strengthening ( awkward) and strengthening of economy ( preferred )

George Washington Carver dedicated his life to the economic strengthening of the South with improvement of soil and diversification of crops.
(A) the economic strengthening of the South with improvement of soil and diversification of crops-this whole sentence sounds awkward
(B) strengthening the economy in the South with soil improvement and the diversification of crops economony in the-wrong wording
(C) strengthening the economy of the South through soil improvement and crop diversification correct, nice flow & follows the rules of paralellism
(D) the strengthening of the economy of the South through improving soil and crop diversifying
(E) the economic strengthening in the South with improving soil and diversifying crops

IMO Ans is 'C'
Lets examine the choices:

a) the economic strengthening of the south is much weaker than strengthening the economy of the South
b) 'in the south' is a wrong prepositional phrase, it must be 'of the south'
c) everything is fine and logical.
d) 'through X and Y', here the X(improving soil) and Y(crop diversifying) aren't parallel.
e) 'the economic strengthening' is awkward.

'strengthening the economy' is different from 'the economic strengthening'

Intended meaning is that GW dedicated his life to strengthening the economy. Additionally, 'soil improvement' must be parallel to 'crop diversification'

Only option C fulfills the conditions.
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Typo in C. Should be:

George Washington dedicated his life to the economic strengthening of the South with improvement of soil and diversification of crops.
(A) the economic strengthening of the South with improvement of soil and diversification of crops
(B) strengthening the economy in the South with soil improvement and the diversification of crops
(C) strengthening the economy of the South through soil improvement and crop diversification
(D) the strengthening of the economy of the South through improving soil and crop diversifying
(E) the economic strengthening in the South with improving soil and diversifying crops

Hi, Can you please say why "'strengthening the economy' is different from 'the economic strengthening' "
Many Thanks.

in question it was "crops" but in option C it is "crop", how can it be right???

Hello, AbhishekDhanraJ72. The simple answer is that in choices (A), (B), and (E), crops is used as a noun, while in (C) and (D), crop is used as an adjective to modify the noun diversification (in (C)) or diversifying (in (D)). This is actually quite common in English, seeing nouns transformed into adjectives. Some examples:

truck driver (one who drives trucks (or lorries))
record store (a store that sells records)
studio apartment (a type or style of apartment)

The list could go on and on. I hope that helps with your question.

- Andrew
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MentorTutoring already did a very nice job with this, but in case a few more examples help:

• "Tim adjusted the asset allocation of his 401k portfolio." - Tim has multiple "assets", but the asset allocation is a singular concept. Even though "asset" is a noun, it's actually acting as a modifier here: what kind of allocation? Asset allocation. We see this sort of thing all the time: "vegetable soup", "office supplies", "town council", etc.
• "Tim adjusted the allocation of the assets in his 401k portfolio." - In the last sentence, "asset" acted like a modifier. Here, "assets" is the object of the preposition "of". This is an entirely different construction, but it conveys the same idea as the first example. Neither is incorrect, though you could argue that the first is more widely accepted.

Similarly, the phrases "diversification of crops" and "crop diversification" are simply two different ways of referring to the same thing.

Keep in mind that, as explained in this post, there is nothing special about choice (A), and we certainly do not need to adhere to anything from choice (A).
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If awkward is your reason for marking any choice incorrect, you are not ready.

a little bit about grammar

I write with a pen
I strengthen the economy though soil improvement.

we use "with" with a concrete noun such as "pen", and "through " with abstract noun such as "improvement". but this is not tested here.

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