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07 Jul 2020, 17:32
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JonShukhrat
You're right about which phrase is active and which is passive, but you should not conclude from this question that the GMAT "shows no preference" between active and passive phrasings. The active/passive distinction is not a grammatical one - passive constructions are just as "correct", grammatically, as active ones. But it's very often true that passive constructions are bad writing, and the GMAT shows a clear preference for good writing over bad. The most you should conclude from this one question is that there are situations where passive constructions are preferable to active ones, which is true (I just used a passive construction in this sentence!).
Writing tends to be easiest to read when it is clear who is performing the action. Both of these sentences are, technically speaking, grammatically correct:
The store was gone to by me.
I went to the store.
but the second active sentence is almost infinitely better than the first passive one (which is completely unacceptable English). There are situations though where passive constructions are justifiable. For example, you'd often prefer the first, passive construction below to the second:
Littering is banned in Canada.
The government banned littering in Canada.
The reason passive voice is perfectly acceptable here is because "littering" is presumably the subject, in the normal non-grammatical sense of that word, of the sentence - the likely point of the sentence is to point out the status of littering, not to point out who introduced certain legislation. Unless the sentence is trying to draw attention specifically to the actions of "the government", there's no reason to mention who banned littering at all.
So a decent guideline (one that probably has exceptions) is this: the subject of your sentence should be the subject of your verb. Most of the time, that means you should use active voice, because the person (or thing) performing the action in the sentence is usually who (or what) the sentence is primarily about. But there are exceptions, ones that do sometimes show up on the GMAT, where passive voice is better than active voice. And if the only distinction between two answer choices in SC is that one is active and one is passive, you'll be right the vast majority of the time if you pick the active one (though not 100% of the time).
18 Jul 2020, 23:24
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Sentence Analysis
While the spraying can be carefully planned, three things – accidents, unforeseeable weather conditions, and pilot errors – cause much larger deposits of spray than predicted.
There is one error in the sentence: there is no antecedent for the pronoun “they”. The antecedent of “they” has to be the doer of “anticipating”. There is no such doer in the sentence.
Option Analysis
A. weather conditions that could not be foreseen, and pilot errors often cause much larger deposits of spray than they had
Incorrect. For the reason mentioned above.
B. weather conditions that cannot be foreseen, and pilot errors often cause much larger deposits of spray than
Correct. The comparison becomes correct by doing away with “they had”. The comparison currently is: X, Y, and Z cause much larger deposits of spray than anticipated. While some people may find the past participle “anticipated” after “than” incorrect, this is a perfectly valid construction. Other examples of this construction:
1. unforeseeable weather conditions, and pilot errors often cause much larger deposits of spray than they had
2. Philippine National Bank’s ’00 Loss was much wider than predicted (Source: WSJ.com)
If you search the following phrase (including quotes) in Google, you’ll get more than 4000 results.
“than anticipated” site:wsj.com
C. unforeseeable weather conditions, and pilot errors are the cause of much larger deposits of spray than they had
Incorrect. For the following reasons:
1. Same error as the original has.
2. The contrast doesn’t make sense. With this option, the two ideas separated by “but” are:
- 1. Spraying can be carefully planned
2. X, Y, and Z are the cause of much larger deposits of spray than anticipated
The contrast is between “spraying can be carefully planned” and what are the causes of larger deposits of spray. Logically, the contrast has to be between “spraying can be carefully planned” and “something leads to much larger deposits of spray”. For example:
Logical (Parallel to the intended contrast in this sentence): He can score high, but his careless attitude causes him to score low.
Not logical(Parallel to this option): He can score high, but his careless attitude is the cause of his low score.
D. weather conditions that are not foreseeable, and pilot errors often cause much larger deposits of spray than
Incorrect. The only difference between this option and option B is in the “that” clause. The reason this option is incorrect is that in Standard English, we don’t write “that are not foreseeable”; we use “that cannot be foreseen”.
E. unforeseeable weather conditions, and pilot errors often cause much larger deposits of spray than they had
Incorrect. Has the same error as option A has.
mk96
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13 Mar 2021, 14:43
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Gmat ninja - I want to know your views on usage of "foreseeable" and "unforseeable" and "foreseen". Is the use of unforeseeable weather conditions in option C correct?
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