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Bunuel
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The usual course of events when nature comes unhingedas it did in the 10 Oct 2023, 01:30
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95% (hard)

Question Stats:

41% (01:51) correct 59% (01:48) wrong based on 186 sessions

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The usual course of events when nature comes unhinged—as it did in the 2017 wildfires of California—is that researchers and officials look back in time, try to understand what happened, and they assess and address the damage done.

(A) that researchers and officials look back in time, try to understand what happened, and they assess and address the damage done

(B) that researchers and officials look back in time, try to understand what happened, assessing and addressing the damage done

(C) for researchers and officials to look back in time, try to understand what happened, assess and address the damage done

(D) for researchers and officials to look back in time, try to understand what happened, as they assess and address the damage done

(E) for researchers and officials to look back in time, trying to understand what happened, as they assess and address the damage done



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The usual course of events when nature comes unhingedas it did in the 26 Oct 2023, 01:31
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Why is 'trying to' in option (E) better than 'try to' in Option D?

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The usual course of events when nature comes unhingedas it did in the 27 Oct 2023, 13:32
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isha One of the reasons why D is incorrect is because the two items in the list - “ look back in time”, “try to understand what happened” - are not combined by an “AND”. The last item in a list should always end with an AND before another clause starts.

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The usual course of events when nature comes unhingedas it did in the 04 Nov 2023, 09:30
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Bunuel
The usual course of events when nature comes unhinged—as it did in the 2017 wildfires of California—is that researchers and officials look back in time, try to understand what happened, and they assess and address the damage done.

(A) that researchers and officials look back in time, try to understand what happened, and they assess and address the damage done

(B) that researchers and officials look back in time, try to understand what happened, assessing and addressing the damage done

(C) for researchers and officials to look back in time, try to understand what happened, assess and address the damage done

(D) for researchers and officials to look back in time, try to understand what happened, as they assess and address the damage done

(E) for researchers and officials to look back in time, trying to understand what happened, as they assess and address the damage done



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VERITAS PREP OFFICIAL SOLUTION:



This confusing problem is primarily testing sentence construction, as is indicated by the decision points that target how the different elements are linked. While you might first notice the choice between “for” and “that” in the beginning of each answer, it is a false decision point – while “for” creates better predication with “course of events” it is possible that this sentence could be constructed with “that”.

As a result, look at the other differences and then analyze (A). In this choice, you are given a relatively easy-to-spot “bungled series”: you cannot say “that researchers look, try, and THEY assess.” For (B), the same problem exists but in a different form: “that researchers look, try, assessing….” is not a parallel series. In (C), the series lacks a conjunction before the last element. You cannot say: “for researchers to look, try, assess and address” – the last two verbs go together and should really be thought of as one. So if this were a proper series it would be “for researchers to look.., try…, and assess and address the damage done”. (D) suffers from a similar problem as it states: “for researchers to look back, try,…as they assess” It would need to be “for researchers to look back and try, as they assess”.

Only (E) links the elements correctly, although the method is confusing to students. For (E), the primary sentence is simply “the usual course is for researchers to look back in time…., as they assess and address the damage done.” The “trying to understand what happened” portion is a participial phrase linked to the clause before and giving you more information about what happens as they look back in time. As you can see in this problem, using slash-and-burn to assess core elements is essential in many confusing sentence construction problems – without it, you may not notice what makes many of the series in this problem incorrect. The correct answer is (E).
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