KAPLAN OFFICIAL EXPLANATION

Step 1: Read the Original Sentence Carefully, Looking for Errors
This sentence contains three errors. First, the underlined pronoun “it” is ambiguous; it is unclear
whether it refers to the “government” or to the “renegade nation,” though logically it should refer
to the latter. Second, while the predicate verb “has imposed” agrees with its subject, “the government,”
the verb tense is incorrect. It makes no sense to say that “the government has imposed
sanctions last month.” When we are describing a single past event that occurred at a specific time
point, we need the simple past tense: “The government imposed sanctions last month.” Third, the
phrase “imposed sanctions” must be followed by the preposition “on” instead of “to” as written.
The correct answer must fix the ambiguous pronoun, the faulty verb tense, and the idiomatic phrase
“imposed sanctions on” without introducing any new errors.

Step 2: Scan and Group the Answer Choices
(A), (B), and (E) retain the pronoun ambiguity. (C) changes “it” to “that nation,” while (D) removes
the pronoun altogether. We have the same 3-2 split for the verb error: (A), (B), and (E) use “has
imposed,” while (C) and (D) use “imposed.” There is also a 3-2 split following “imposed sanctions”:
(B) and (C) add the word “on,” while (A), (D), and (E) do not.

Step 3: Eliminate Choices Until Only One Remains
We can eliminate (A), (B), and (E) because all three commit the pronoun and verb tense errors
we spotted in the original sentence. Of the remaining choices, (D) attempts to fix the ambiguous
pronoun by simply leaving it out: “The government imposed sanctions . . . after violating . . .” This
construction makes it sound as if the same government that imposed the sanctions violated the
treaty, which doesn’t make much logical sense. (C) fixes the pronoun ambiguity and also conveys
the more logical meaning: “That nation” (i.e., the renegade nation) violated the treaty. Because (C)
also fixes the verb tense error by changing “has imposed” to “imposed” and adds the preposition
“on” after “imposed sanctions,” it is the correct answer.