Hi All,
Recent indications of weakness in the economy have led consumers to be more conservative with their purchases;
so depressed have sales figures been as a result that the government has launched several initiatives to actively encourage consumer spending.
There are a lot of things happening in the sentence. So let’s put them in order to simplify which action is leading to which one.
a. There have been recent indications of weak economy.
b. These have led consumers to be more conservative with their purchase.
c. Now, because (as a result) of consumers becoming conservative with their purchases, sales figures have been very depressed.
d. Therefore, the government has launched several initiatives so that consumers can start spending the way they were doing before.
Error Analysis
1. The subject and the verb are accounted for – “sales figures” and “have been”. Notice that this sentence does not follow the regular “subject followed by the verb construction”. Hence, it may sound a little out of place. But this kind of structure is grammatically correct.
2. Use of present perfect “have been depressed” is correct to show an action that has started in the recent past and still continues.
3. There are no modifier, pronoun, and idiom errors in this sentence.
4. The sentence is correct as is.
POE:
Choice A: so depressed have sales figures been as a result that:
Correct for the reasons stated above.
Choice B: the sales figures have been so depressed as a result that:
Incorrect. Notice the presence of “the” before “sales figures”. The original sentence does not have “the” before this subject. This means that the sentence is talking about general sales figures. It’s talking about the overall sales figures. However, “the” in this choice implies that the sentence is talking about particular sales figures. This does not make sense because nowhere in the sentence do we get the mention of any specific kind of sales figures. Hence, even though this choice follows the regular subject-verb syntax and reads flawless, presence of “the” and the illogical specificity that it attaches to sales figures make this choice incorrect.
Choice C: as a result, so depressed has the sales been that:
Incorrect. 1. Singular verb “has” does not agree in number with plural subject “sales”.
2. The choice repeats the error of “the” as in Choice B.
Choice D: the resulting sales figures having been so depressed that:
Incorrect. There is no main verb in this choice. This leads to fragment error.
Choice E: the sales figures have been so depressed that, as a result,:
Incorrect. 1. This choice changes the meaning of the sentence. The phrase “as a result” connects the sentence after the semicolon with the one before the semicolon. The intended meaning is that due to customers becoming more conservative with their purchases, sales figures have been depressed. However, this choice says that because sales figures have been depressed, the government has taken certain steps to boost sales.
2. The choice repeats the error of “the” as in Choice B.
Hope this helps.
Thanks.
Shraddha
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