Limited access to expertise, along with the lack of easily available

Question

Limited access to expertise,  along with the lack of easily available pesticides, have led to the uncontrolled spread of chemicals , with hitherto unknown consequences for the environment.

(A) along with the lack of easily available pesticides, have led to the uncontrolled spread of chemicals
(B) along with the lack of easily available pesticides, has led to the uncontrolled spread of chemicals
(C) along with the lack in easily available pesticides, which have led to the uncontrolled spread of chemicals
(D) along with easily available pesticides, has led to the uncontrolled spread of chemicals
(E) along with easily available pesticides, has led to the uncontrollably spreading chemicals

daagh · Answer

I am rather very skeptical about the logic of this question. Look at this

Limited access to expertise, along with the lack of easily available pesticides, has led to the uncontrolled spread of chemicals;

I am not going into grammar now.

The thread says that two factors are responsible for the uncontrolled spread of chemicals. Of them one is the lack of easily available pesticides. Pesticides themselves are chemicals how can we reconcile to lack of them in the first part and uncontrolled spread of the same in the second part. Therefore, I would just dump A, B and C. between D and E, D is better because of the idiomatic expression of the phrase ‘ uncontrolled spread’.

Do we normally get such obviously illogical questions, especially when meaning is turning out to be priority?

sdas · Answer

Daagh, is this not referring to "lack of easy availability of pesticides" (that is the meaning I believe)

daagh · Answer

My issue is when ther is a lack of easy availability, then things should be pretty difficult to spread. How can we, so, combine two antithetical elements?.

RyanCJW · Answer

(A) - Limited access to expertise... has led to... Have led is incorrect.
(B) - Why would a lack of expertise + a lack of easily available pesticides (the chemicals) lead to an uncontrolled spread of chemicals. This doesn't make sense and there is no other explanation in this sentence as to why there would be that uncontrolled spread in chemicals, therefore this one is wrong too.
(C) - "...along with the lack in" should be "...along with the lack of" - wrong.
(D) - This is correct. This sentence states that the limited access to expertise along with easily available pesticides would result in consequences for the environment (availability of chemicals + limited access to experitise that would let us know those pesticides would lead to consequences for the environment="hitherto unknown consequences for the environment").
(E) - "uncontrollably spreading chemicals" is the only thing that sets this one apart from the correct (D). Uncontrollably spreading doesn't convey the same meaning as uncontrolled and doesn't support the first part of the sentence.

I'm going to go with D here.

-Ryan

mun23 · Answer

I will go with D.
(A)has subject verb error.Singular subject limited access should follow singular verb has led not have led
(B)Meaning is nonsensical because limited access to expertise & lack of easily available pesticides can not lead to the uncontrolled spread of chemical that is not possible. 
(C)has modifier problem.Modifier which modifies available pesticides instead of limited access and it also has idiom problem. the use of lack in is wrong.here lack of is the correct idiom
(D)Its the correct answer.here the singular subject limited access correctly followed singular verb has led,idiom lack of is correctly used & the sentence`s meaning makes sense
(E)The uncontrollably spreading chemicals does not make sense properly.

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kaiyuan28935749 · Answer

Does D not change the meaning of the original sentence?

DmitryFarberMPrep · Answer

kaiyuan28935749 There is no such thing as the "original meaning" of the sentence. Our job is to look at all five choices to determine the intended meaning, and then select the answer choice that best expresses that meaning. The meaning expressed in A is illogical, as daagh has pointed out, so we absolutely must select an answer with a different meaning! Remember that A has no monopoly on correctness. Like any other choice, it is wrong 4/5 of the time, and that's not just in terms of grammar. The meaning can be wrong, too!

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Limited access to expertise, along with the lack of easily available

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