mariyea wrote:
A decade after initiating the nation’s most comprehensive and aggressive anti-smoking program, per capita consumption of cigarettes in California declined from over 125 packs annually per person to about 60, a drop more than twice as great as in the nation as a whole.
A. …
B. Annual per capita consumption of cigarette4s in California declined from over 125 to about 60, more than twice as great as that
C. California’s annual per capita consumption of cigarettes declined from over 125 packs per person to about 60, more than twice as great as the drop
D. California has seen per capita consumption of cigarettes decline from over 125 packs annually to about 60, a drop more than twice as great as that
E. California has seen annual per capita consumption of cigarettes decline from over 125 packs per person to about 60, more than twice as great as that
I chose E for this one. I was between E and D. I have an idea of what went wrong but I need to get a clear picture of why I made this mistake. Please tell me your answers and tell me how you came to those answers. Thanks!
Hi!
(E) has two major problems. First, it contains "per capita... per person". Since per capita and per person mean the same thing, E is redundant.
Second, (E) is missing the essential phrase "a drop" in the last part. Without "a drop", it's unclear what the last phrase is modifying. If we read (E) literally, the last phrase is saying that "about 60" is twice as great as that in the nation, which is nonsensical.
Since A, B and C all begin with modification errors (we need to start with "California", which is what the introductory phrase is describing), only D remains - choose D!