Pack 20 Q1: Although concessions by police department officials...

Although concessions by police department officials was made of incidents involving excessive force and use of derogatory language in intimidating minorities, they did not provide details on the number of officers involved.

A. concessions by police department officials was made of incidents involving excessive force and use of derogatory language in intimidating Incorrect

passive form - concessions by police department officials

B. concessions by police department officials that there had been incidents involving excessive force and use of derogatory language in intimidating Incorrect

passive form - concessions by police department officials

C. police department officials have conceded that there had been incidents involving excessive force, as well as use of derogatory language to intimidate Incorrect

tense error - usages 'have' wrong, past form required

D. police department officials conceded that there had been incidents involving excessive force and use of derogatory language to intimidate Correct

E. police department officials, conceding incidents involving excessive force and use of derogatory language in intimidating Incorrect

after 'although' there is no main clause

Although concessions by police department officials was made of incidents involving excessive force and use of derogatory language in intimidating minorities, they did not provide details on the number of officers involved.

A. concessions by police department officials was made of incidents involving excessive force and use of derogatory language in intimidating
<incorrect> concessions and was - SV error
B. concessions by police department officials that there had been incidents involving excessive force and use of derogatory language in intimidating
<incorrect> No verb for concessions
C. police department officials have conceded that there had been incidents involving excessive force, as well as use of derogatory language to intimidate
<incorrect> incorrect use of past perfect and the usage of as well as instead of and is incorrect
D. police department officials conceded that there had been incidents involving excessive force and use of derogatory language to intimidate
< correct>
E. police department officials, conceding incidents involving excessive force and use of derogatory language in intimidating
<incorrect> No verb for police department officials

Official Explanation

Although concessions by police department officials was made of incidents involving excessive force and use of derogatory language in intimidating minorities, they did not provide details on the number of officers involved.

A. concessions by police department officials was made of incidents involving excessive force and use of derogatory language in intimidating
B. concessions by police department officials that there had been incidents involving excessive force and use of derogatory language in intimidating
C. police department officials have conceded that there had been incidents involving excessive force, as well as use of derogatory language to intimidate
D. police department officials conceded that there had been incidents involving excessive force and use of derogatory language to intimidate
E. police department officials, conceding incidents involving excessive force and use of derogatory language in intimidating

After a quick glance over the options, we have 2 main areas we can focus on to narrow down our options:
1. How they begin (Active vs. Passive Voice; Verb Choice; Meaning)
2. “in intimidating” vs. “to intimidate” (Idioms)

Since #2 on our list is an “either/or” split, let’s start there. No matter which way we go, we’ll eliminate 2-3 options right away. We typically use the word “intimidating” as a way to describe a person or thing, and “intimidate” as the action of intimidation. Since we’re not trying to call the minorities intimidating, we should eliminate any options that might mislead readers into thinking we mean to attribute “intimidating” to the minorities and not the intended action:

A. concessions by police department officials was made of incidents involving excessive force and use of derogatory language in intimidating
B. concessions by police department officials that there had been incidents involving excessive force and use of derogatory language in intimidating
C. police department officials have conceded that there had been incidents involving excessive force, as well as use of derogatory language to intimidate
D. police department officials conceded that there had been incidents involving excessive force and use of derogatory language to intimidate
E. police department officials, conceding incidents involving excessive force and use of derogatory language in intimidating

We can eliminate options A, B, & E because “in intimidating” isn’t idiomatic here, and it might mislead readers into thinking the writer means to call the minorities “intimidating.” Now that we have it narrowed down to only 2 options, let’s look closely at each to determine which is the better choice:

C. police department officials have conceded that there had been incidents involving excessive force, as well as use of derogatory language to intimidate
This is INCORRECT for a couple reasons. First, the present perfect tense “have conceded” doesn’t make sense here – all the events happened in the past, with the incidents involving excessive force and derogatory language happening first (hence the past perfect tense). Second, breaking up the sentence with the comma and “as well as” doesn’t work. It turns vital information into a non-essential clause, which robs the sentence of much of its intended meaning (leaving out the derogatory language and the fact that these methods were used on minorities in particular).

D. police department officials conceded that there had been incidents involving excessive force and use of derogatory language to intimidate
This is our CORRECT choice! The verb tenses all make logical sense and show the proper order of events and combining the two intimidation tactics with “and” keeps ALL of the important information intact!


There you have it – option D is our winner!


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Well done prateekchugh! You cracked the code on this one! Kudos to you, and we look forward to seeing how you tackle Question 2!

Welcome to the kudos contest Tpepdx! You cracked the code on this one - kudos to you! Looking forward to seeing how you tackle Question 2!

Another great explanation, winterschool! You tackled this question differently than we did, which is great! We love seeing other examples of how to answer GMAT questions. Kudos to you!

Well done Gmat410! Kudos to you for getting this one right! Can't wait to see how you handle Question 2!

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