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Re V08-15
[#permalink]
04 Aug 2015, 09:06
Official Solution:
Presently the East African country is focused on privatization of state-owned enterprises, expansion of democracy and political freedom, and de-escalation of interethnic conflicts and ousting corruption.
A. Presently the East African country is focused on privatization of state-owned enterprises, expansion of democracy and political freedom, and de-escalation of interethnic conflicts, and ousting corruption.
B. Presently the East African country is focused on privatization of state-owned enterprises, expansion of democracy and political freedom, de-escalation of interethnic conflicts, and ouster of corruption.
C. Presently the East African country is focused on privatization of state-owned enterprises, expansion of democracy and political freedom, and de-escalating interethnic conflicts, and on ousting corruption.
D. Presently the East African country is focused on privatization of state-owned enterprises, on expansion of democracy and political freedom, de-escalation of interethnic conflicts, and on ousting of corruption.
E. Presently the East African country is focused on privatization of state-owned enterprises, expanding democracy and political freedom, and on de-escalation of interethnic conflicts, and ousting corruption.
A: This sentences lists four things on which a country is focused. The structure of the list should be A, B and C, D, and E; “B and C” together are one item. Option A improperly inserts an extra “and” after the word “freedom” and before the word “de-escalation.” The latter is the next-to-last item on the list. Only the last item on a list should be preceded by a comma. That last comma is called an “Oxford comma,” which is rarely seen in British English or in journalism but is required by GMAC.
B. Correct list parallelism. The country is focused on privatization (A), expansion of this and that (B and C), de-escalation (D), and ouster (E).
C. The ‘and’ after freedom ruins the proper structure of a list of items. The gerund “de-escalating” is not preferred to the dedicated noun “de-escalation,” and is not parallel with “privatization” and “expansion.” Finally, “ousting of corruption” is not idiomatic. We say “ousting corruption” or “ouster of corruption.”
D. Not parallel. The preposition “on” must come before only the first item or before every item in the list. The third list item, “de-escalation,” should also be preceded by the word “on.”
E. The same error as in C (“and” should not precede “on de-escalation”).
Not parallel because the preposition “on” is used before the first and third list items but not before the second and fourth items.
Not as parallel as option B because the noun or noun-like pattern in E is noun, gerund, noun, gerund. (Privatization, expandING, de-escalation, oustING.)
Answer: B