generis wrote:
Project SC Butler: Day 37 Sentence Correction (SC1)
The most common reasons for an employee’s unwillingness to accept a transfer are
that mortgage rates are high, housing in the new location costs more, and the difficulty of selling the old home.
(A) that mortgage rates are high, housing in the new location costs more, and the difficulty of selling the old home
(B) that mortgage rates are high, housing in the new location costs more, and that it is difficult to sell the old home
(C) high mortgage rates, the greater cost of housing in the new location, and that the old home is difficult to sell
(D) high mortgage rates, the greater cost of housing in the new location, and it is difficult to sell the old home
(E) high mortgage rates, the greater cost of housing in the new location, and the difficulty of selling the old home
OFFICIAL EXPLANATION• Choice A is incorrect because the noun phrase
the difficulty of selling the old house cannot grammatically complete the structure begun by
that.
Clauses, such as those explaining the first two reasons, are needed after
that• The corrected sentence will have all three reasons listed in grammatically parallel form.
The phrasing of the third reason in choices B, C, and D departs from the parallel wording of the
first two by introducing a
that . . . or an
it . . . construction.
• Choice E is best
COMMENTSFirst, welcome,
GuptaSapan ,
onlynithin ,
krishna1988 , at ritu1009 , and
KanishkM . Glad to see you posting!
(If I have welcomed you before, my current welcome is a refresher. I read hundreds of posts by people on lots of threads.)
I am also glad to see
Prateekj05 ,
sonusaini1 , and
lary301254M7 ; GMAT Club thrives because
people who have been on the forum for a little while take the time to write good posts and ask good questions.
(In other words, a combination of semi-veterans and new people keeps the forum lively.)
I am always glad to see dialogue, such as that between
lary301254M7 and
krishna1988 . This forum is a really good place to exchange ideas.
Okay, the
that situation.
Usage of
that on the GMAT is discussed in
this post by GMAT Ninja.
Usage of
that is also discussed
in THIS POST and
THIS POST.
All three should take no more than 15 minutes to read.
I recommend reading and making flash cards from all three.In this case,
that in option A is not an article (
that white house over there); not a pronoun (a voice like
that of an angel); not an essential modifier (the house
that Jack built);
and not, as some have noted, a
that required by an idiomatic verb (usually a reporting or knowing verb, e.g., believe that, think that, say that, suggest that).
Rather, in option A, THAT is a subordinate conjunction that must be followed by a clause or clauses containing
both subject and a verb.What follows the "that" in option A is okay until we get to the NOUN phrase with no verb
difficulty (of selling old houses). "Difficulty" does not have a verb.
Option E is the best because it uses three parallel noun phrases anchored by: rates, cost, and difficulty.
Although parallelism dominates and everyone here rejected (A), the reason to reject (A) has more to do with
what must follow a substantive
that clause (namely, a noun AND a verb) than with parallelism.
Did I mention
I really like those three posts on that? Nobody has listed the correct reason to reject the use of
that in option A. (At least as I read the answers. Correct me if I am wrong.)
I am happy that option A bothered everyone.
How about this suggestion: I will give kudos to all because I completely forgot to post the OE till now, and
maybe you all could take me up on my suggestion about reading those posts?
Whether or not you accept the "deal": kudos to all.