The greater chance of developing stress-related heart disease belongs

Question

The  greater chance of developing stress-related heart disease belongs not to the dynamic executive, male or female, nor the single mother,  but the married woman who holds a full-time job while still performing most household tasks at home.

A. greater chance of developing stress-related heart disease belongs not to the dynamic executive, male or female, nor the single mother,

B. greater chance of developing stress-related heart disease is not risked by the dynamic executive, male or female, or the single mother,

C. one who most risks developing stress-related heart disease is not the dynamic executive, male or female, or the single mother

D. one who risks the greater chance of developing stress-related heart disease is not the dynamic executive, male or female, nor the single mother

E. one most risking the greater chance of developing stress-related heart disease is neither the dynamic executive, male nor female, nor the single mother

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ChiranjeevSingh · Accepted Answer

Here's the   official explanation   provided by the GMAC for this question:
 
All but one of the versions of this sentence use the phrase  the greater chance . In standard usage,  the greater  contrasts one quantity with one other, not with multiple others. Unless the risk referred to in this sentence is being compared to the risk incurred by someone in an unseen previous context,  the greater  is the wrong expression, because the contrast is between the level of risk incurred by one type of person and the levels of risk incurred by two other types of people.
 
 Option A:   The chance  ...  belongs not to  ...  nor  is awkward and unidiomatic.  Not  is followed by a prepositional phrase starting with  to , which is not parallel to the noun phrases following  nor  and  but .  The greater  is the wrong expression; since three levels of risk are being compared, the appropriate expression would be  the greatest .

Option B:   The greater chance  ...  is not risked by  is illogically redundant.  The greater  is the wrong expression; since three levels of risk are being compared, the appropriate expression would be  the greatest .

Option C:  Correct. This version uses the words correctly and is structured using concise parallel constructions that clearly express the relationships among the levels of risk and among those incurring the risks.

Option D:   Who risks the greater chance  is illogically redundant.  The greater  is the wrong expression; since three levels of risk are being compared, the appropriate expression would be  the greatest .

Option E:   Most risking the greater chance  is illogically redundant. In the phrase  male nor female , the conjunction should be  or  instead of  nor .  The greater  is the wrong expression; since three levels of risk are being compared, the appropriate expression would be  the greatest .
 
The correct answer is C.

Please note that I'm not the author of this explanation. I'm just posting it here since I believe it can help the community.

Aviral1995 · Answer

The greater chance of developing stress-related heart disease belongs not to the dynamic executive, male or female, nor the single mother, but the married woman who holds a full-time job while still performing most household tasks at home.

A. greater chance of developing stress-related heart disease belongs not to the dynamic executive, male or female, nor the single mother,

B. greater chance of developing stress-related heart disease is not risked by the dynamic executive, male or female, or the single mother,

C. one who most risks developing stress-related heart disease is not the dynamic executive, male or female, or the single mother

D. one who risks the greater chance of developing stress-related heart disease is not the dynamic executive, male or female, nor the single mother

E. one most risking the greater chance of developing stress-related heart disease is neither the dynamic executive, male nor female, nor the single mother

Here The is used and 'the' is always followed by superlative, so use of greater(comparitive form) is incorrect, ruling out options A,B,D
E is out because of use of nor instead of 'or' in male nor female
Answer is C

NitishJain · Answer

IMO  C

A. Neither ...nor...is the correct idiom usage
B. Subject: greater chance Verb: is not risked.  WRONG 
C.  Correct ; or is used to show parallelism
D. Again same as A, 
E. Same as B

Abhishek009 · Answer

The one who most risks developing stress-related heart disease is 
   not   the dynamic executive, male or female, or the single mother  
 but   the married woman    
who holds a full-time job while still performing most household tasks at home.

Answer must be (C) for correct Idiomatic usage Not X but Y, further (C) uses correct parallelism structure....

stne · Answer

Diction,proper usage .

A: You don't say "chance of developing stress-related heart disease"  belongs  to x y or z, especially when are other better options available. You are not showing ownership here, to show that x belongs to y. INCORRECT.

B. greater chance and risk has almost similar meaning, both convey degree of something, hence using both of these is redundant. INCORRECT.

C. Best option. Keep. CORRECT.

D." risks" and " greater chance" are redundant IMO, also sentence is wordy compared to C.  "Nor"  is incorrect without neither. INCORRECT.

E. " Neither - Nor - Nor " improper. C is certainly better than E.  INCORRECT.

Ans-C

Hope it's clear.

jaisonsunny77 · Answer

A. greater chance of developing stress-related heart disease belongs not to the dynamic executive, male or female, nor the single mother,  -  When we use coordinating conjunction pairs (such as Not X... But Y), the clauses taken by the conjunction words must have a similar structure. Here, the clause commanded by the conjunction ''but'' does not have the preposition ''to''.  
 
B. greater chance of developing stress-related heart disease is not risked by the dynamic executive, male or female, or the single mother, -  When we use coordinating conjunction pairs (such as Not X... But Y), the clauses taken by the conjunction words must have a similar structure. Here, Here, the word that follows the conjunction ''not'' is a verb, whereas the word that follows the conjunction ''but'' is an  article. .  
 
C. one who most risks developing stress-related heart disease is not the dynamic executive, male or female, or the single mother - has no error. Hence,  (C) is the right answer choice  
 
D. one who risks the greater chance of developing stress-related heart disease is not the dynamic executive, male or female,  nor  the single mother  -  ''nor'' is not preceded by ''neither'' 
 
E. one most risking the greater chance of developing stress-related heart disease is neither the dynamic executive, male nor female, nor the single mother  -  the terms highlighted by 'nor' are not equivalent - some contain the article ''the'' while others do not.

NiftyNiffler · Answer

The greater chance of developing stress-related heart disease belongs not to the dynamic executive, male or female, nor the single mother,  but the married woman who holds a full-time job while still performing most household tasks at home.

A. greater chance of developing stress-related heart disease belongs not to the dynamic executive, male or female, nor the single mother,  -- correct idiom should have been "not to X, but to Y"

B. greater chance of developing stress-related heart disease is not risked by the dynamic executive, male or female, or the single mother,  -- unnecessary passive construct in underlined part
 
C. one who most risks developing stress-related heart disease is not the dynamic executive, male or female, or the single mother  -- CORRECT, "not" is commonly applied as negation component. "one who most risks.." correctly describes women.
 
D. one who risks the greater chance of developing stress-related heart disease is not the dynamic executive, male or female, nor the single mother  -- "risk the chance" doesn't make sense. "not X nor Y" is not correct idiom
 
E. one most risking the greater chance of developing stress-related heart disease is neither the dynamic executive, male nor female, nor the single mother  -- too many "nor"s and same error as D
 
So, the answer is  C

vipulshahi · Answer

The  greater chance of developing stress-related heart disease belongs not to the dynamic executive, male or female, nor the single mother , but the married woman who holds a full-time job while still performing most household tasks at home.

* Subject Verb Pair    "greater chance belongs" - not make sense    ; " who holds" ] - incorrect
* Tense Form   - conveys intended meaning 
* If then conditional - not used
* Subjunctive verb - not used
* Pronoun   
* Modifier  
*   Parallelism   - parallelism error  
* Comparison - not used
  * Idioms   - idiomatic error

A.   greater chance of developing stress-related heart disease belongs   not to the dynamic executive, male or female,   nor   the single mother,

1. subject verb pair " greater chance - belongs " - not make sense
2. idiomatic error - "nor"

- Incorrect 
 
B. greater chance of developing stress-related heart disease is not risked   by the dynamic executive, male or female, or the single mother ,

- Passive verb usage makes incorrect.
 
C. one who most risks developing stress-related heart disease is not the dynamic executive, male or female, or the single mother

1. Removes the subject verb error
2. using "or" removes the idiomatic error

- Corrects
 
D. one who risks the greater chance of developing stress-related heart disease is   not   the dynamic executive, male or female,   nor   the single mother

- Idiomatic error ;"not.....nor....". Hence incorrect 
 
E. one most risking the greater chance of developing stress-related heart disease is neither the dynamic executive, male   nor   female,   nor   the single mother

- Multiple usage of "nor" makes incorrect.

IMO(C)

Vatsal7794 · Answer

The greater chance of developing stress-related heart disease belongs not to the dynamic executive, male or female, nor the single mother, but the married woman who holds a full-time job while still performing most household tasks at home.

A. greater chance of developing stress-related heart disease belongs not to the dynamic executive, male or female, nor the single mother,

B. greater chance of developing stress-related heart disease is not risked by the dynamic executive, male or female, or the single mother,

C. one who most risks developing stress-related heart disease is not the dynamic executive, male or female, or the single mother

D. one who risks the greater chance of developing stress-related heart disease is not the dynamic executive, male or female, nor the single mother

E. one most risking the greater chance of developing stress-related heart disease is neither the dynamic executive, male nor female, nor the single mother

Hi Experts

KarishmaB   MartyTargetTestPrep   DmitryFarber

Why Option D is wrong
As far as I know Not X nor Y is correct Idiom

KarishmaB · Answer

The idiom is 'Not X but Y' in which X and Y are parallel. 
Here, you can use 'Not X or Y, but Z' in which X, Y and Z must be parallel.

With 'nor,' we use 'neither.'
Neither X nor Y.

The greater chance of developing stress-related heart disease belongs

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GMAT Sentence Correction (SC - EA only) Questions

The greater chance of developing stress-related heart disease belongs

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