OFFICIAL EXPLANATIONProject SC Butler: Sentence Correction (SC2)
Quote:
The best strategy for preventing hip fractures among residents of geriatric homes is to eliminate hazards from the residential environment before bone loss develops, combined with balance training and to encourage an increase of bone density through diet and weight-bearing exercise.
• The components of "the best strategy for preventing hip fractures" must be parallel; that is, the components must be logically similar and the same parts of speech
→ the word
and is a parallelism marker: X and Y, in which X and Y are logically similar and the same parts of speech
• Meaning is strange.
→ elimination of hazards can prevent
falls that lead to hip fractures, but preventing bone loss is connected to
diet and weight-bearing exercise.
→ the sentence would make more sense if
[i]bone loss were closer to diet and ...exercise.[/i]
THE OPTIONSQuote:
A. to eliminate hazards from the residential environment before bone loss develops, combined with balance training and to encourage an increase of bone density through diet and weight-bearing exercise
•
balance training and
to encourage, which are connected by
and, should be parallel but are not
→
balance training is noun.
To encourage is an infinitive.
Quote:
B. to eliminate hazards from the residential environment and a combination of balance training to encourage an increase of bone density through diet and weight-bearing exercise, before bone loss develops
•
to eliminate and
a combination are not parallel though they are "flagged" by the word
and.→ Components of the strategy must be parallel.
→ Do not be fooled by
to encourage: that phrase is parallel to "to eliminate," but we look to the "head nouns" on either side of the
and in order to check for parallelism. In this option, in X and Y
X = to eliminate [hazards]
Y = a combination [of balance training in order to encourage an increase in bone density]
Not parallel.
ELIMINATE B
Quote:
C. if hazards are eliminated from the residential environment and combined with balance training and to encourage an increase of bone density through diet and weight-bearing exercise, before bone loss develops
Wow. This option is a hot mess.
• The best strategy is IF?
→ The word
if is used for conditionals.
Correct: The best strategy is X and Y.
Correct: The best strategy is X, Y, and Z.
• Also nonsensical: how can
hazards be both
eliminated and
combined with balance training?
→
If hazards are eliminated . . . and combined. . . ????
The subject of the clause is
hazards, which is tied, nonsensically, to two verbs:
are eliminated and
[are] combined→ Fractures will not be prevented if hazards . . . are combined with balance training.
ELIMINATE C
Quote:
D. to eliminate hazards from the residential environment and, combined with balance training, to encourage an increase of bone density through diet and weight-bearing exercise, before bone loss develops
• bingo.
→
to eliminate is parallel to
to courage→
combined with balance training is now properly a parenthetical (an aside) and does not disrupt the parallelism of the two list items
KEEP
Quote:
E. if before bone loss develops, residents combine balance training and encourage an increase of bone density with diet and weight-bearing exercise while residential environments are eliminated of hazards
• same problem as that in (C): it is ungrammatical to say that "The best strategy is IF . . ."
• The rest of this answer choice is odd at best and illogical at worst.
→ The subject is now
residents.
The verbs
combine and
encourage are grammatical (right tense) but not logical.
→ The residents could themselves
combine balance training with something
→ But the residents cannot themselves
encourage an increase in bone density: diet and weight bearing exercise do that.
→ finally, combine balance training
with whatTo combine means to add one thing to another, but in (E)
balance training stands alone and is not combined with anything.
• Not idiomatic:
residential environments are eliminated of hazardsWow, that phrasing is horrible.
We can say that "hazards are eliminated FROM environments" or that "residential environments are PURGED of hazards," (though the latter is weird), but we cannot use "are eliminated" in this way. The phrase does not mean "to be free from."
ELIMINATE E
COMMENTS
lokesh5 , welcome to SC Butler.
gmat1393 , good to see you, my eagle-eyed and helpful friend. Edited, finally.
I am impressed. These answers are really good.
Very nicely done.
close
28 Nov 2020, 22:57
35%
(medium)
30%
(01:56)
wrong 
