shaarang wrote:
Under the Department of Transportation's old rules, salt could be transported loosely, and so it was not necessary to have advanced packaging facilities.
A) loosely, and so it was not necessary to have advanced packaging facilities.
B) loose, so advanced packaging facilities were unnecessary.
C) loosely, and so there was no necessity for advanced packaging facilities.
D) loose, there being no necessity for advanced packaging facilities.
E) loosely, as no advanced packaging facilities were necessary.
Source: Ready4GMAT
While the use of "loose" vs "loosely" could be debated, and I don't know of a grammatical rule that prefers the use of one over the other, there are other things wrong with the sentence you can use to eliminate options. I like this sentence because it makes the test taker focus on stylistic issue while masking grammatical issues, such as:
1) Oxford comma; no need for a comma before "and" as it's not a list
2) While we're at it, no need for "and". "And" is a conjunction that introduces two separate ideas; note that "and" does
not show causation. "and so" is used to show causation when only "so" would have sufficed. This creates redundancy.
3) 'B' is much cleaner and has better construction when compared to the awkward and wordy 'A' - if you absolutely
must fixate on stylistic issues, construction is the safest metric you can use as it's a lot easier to get right as opposed to the "loose" v/s "loosely" debate.
(E) is wrong because "as" is used to show causation when its purpose is to introduce a new idea; "so" is a better bet. (D) makes the classic "being" mistake where the author tries to use it as a verb. Hot tip: if you can swap out "being" for "is" or "was" and the sentence still makes sense, it's probably
being used incorrectly.
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