All across Detroit, whitewashed fences, new roofs, and freshly painted

Dear Friends,

Here is a detailed explanation to this question-



Choice A: Option A maintains proper idiom and tense use throughout the sentence and conveys the intended meaning, properly. Thus, Option A is correct.

Choice B: Option B utilizes an incorrect idiom form in "with one clapboard house at a time"; the correct form of this idiom would be “one clapboard at a time”. Thus, Option B is incorrect.

Choice C: Option C repeats the same error that Option B makes. Thus, Option C is incorrect.

Choice D: Option D utilizes the incorrect tense form, past perfect, in the phrase "had been led"; past perfect is the wrong tense to utilize here, as the first half of the sentence implies that the renewal is ongoing. Thus, Option D is incorrect.

Choice E: Option E changes the meaning of the sentence by utilizing the conjunction "and", in place of a comma, to form the phrase "led by new immigrants and one clapboard house at a time". The new meaning of the sentence is that the renewal was led by new immigrants and "one clapboard house”. As this meaning is quite illogical, we can say that Option E is incorrect.

Hence, A is the best answer choice.

This question makes prominent use of an idiom that you might be unfamiliar with, "one X at a time". Although this idiom is not very common on the GMAT, you might encounter it still; therefore, we will now go over its use in some detail. This idiom is a verb modifier, meaning it is used to modify actions. The 'X' in the idiom is always a smaller element of the overall action. For example, if we were referring to writing software the smaller element might be each individual line of code. The purpose of this idiom is to emphasize the gradual progression of action by laying stress on the smallest steps taken to complete said action.

To understand the concept of the “Past Perfect Tense and the use of Had on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~2 minutes):



All the best!
Experts' Global Team