Millions of workers have jobs that are able to be done as well at home

Question

Project SC Butler: Day 211: Sentence Correction (SC1) 
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Millions of workers have jobs that are able to be done as well at home as at the office, instead of consuming the gasoline used to get to work .

A) Millions of workers have jobs that are able to be done as well at home as at the office, instead of consuming the gasoline used to get to work.

B) Millions of workers have jobs that can be done as well at home as the office, rather than consume the gasoline they must use to get to work.

C) Instead of consuming the gasoline used to get to work, millions of workers have jobs that are able to be done as well at home as at the office.

D) Rather than consume the gasoline used to get to work, millions of workers can do their jobs as well at home as the office.

E) Instead of using gasoline to get to work, millions of workers could do their jobs as well at home as at the office.

generis · Answer

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zhanbo · Answer

I chose  (E) .

To rule out (A) through (D), we can simply apply the guideline that "active voice is better than passive voice".

(A) "are able to be done" is passive voice
(B) "that can be done" is passive voice
(C) "that are able to be done " is passive voice
(D) here "used to get to work" can be simplified to be "to get to work".

eakabuah · Answer

I also chose E. This question tests parallelism in comparisons. When you compare two things, say X and Y, X and Y must logically be parallel. So, what entities are being compared? Jobs that can be done at home vs jobs that can be done at the office . As pointed by zhanbo the active voice is better and more direct than the passive voice ceteris paribus. If there are no errors in the sentence, the meaning is the same in the options but some options are in active voice while others are in passive voice, by all means choose the active voice over the passive voice. This is because the option in passive voice will definitely be wordier than that in the active voice. The parallelism is okay in A. X: Jobs that are able to be done at home vs Y: Jobs that are able to be done at the office . Actually the comparison is between at home vs at the office . Everything is okay except for the wordiness of are able to be done . Keep A, and look for a better option. There is an error in the parallelism in B. at home , a prepositional phrase, is not parallel to the office , a noun. Eliminate B. The parallelism is okay in C. X: at home, prepositional phrase and Y: at the office, a prepositional phrase. X and Y are parallel. There is a trick I usually adopt in sentence correction. If two options are basically the same, neither can be correct, hence I will mark them as wrong. Look at A and C. They are indistinguishable. On hindsight, I know both are wrong. But Keep C also, we will find a better reason to eliminate both

Once again X: at home, a prepositional phrase is not parallel to Y: the office, a noun phrase. Eliminate D. The parallelism is correct in E. X: at home, a prepositional phrase is parallel to Y: at the office, a prepositional phrase. Keep E. Now the difference between A, C, and E is the concision of the verb used. A and C use are able to be done while E uses could do. Obviously could do is more concise than are able to be done. Hence eliminate A and C for wordiness and keep E as the best answer for its more concise verb.

GMATWhizTeam · Answer

UNDERSTANDING INTENDED MEANING

Let’ break the sentence to derive the intended meaning, identifying the errors along the way:

Millions of workers have jobs 
that are able to be done as well at home as at the office, 
instead of consuming the gasoline used to get to work

ERRORS: 
1. “jobs that are able to be done” is  awkwardly in passive voice (not favoured by GMAT) and wordy . Much better to say “…jobs that can be done as well at …..”
2. The subject of the sentence is “millions of workers” and the verb is “have”. So, it seems that the modifier “consuming” is either applicable to the workers or to the verb “have”. Either ways  it seems the workers are  consuming  the gasoline to get to work .

INTENDED MEANING: 
• Millions of workers have jobs that could be done as well at home as at the office.
• Thus, instead of using gasoline to go to the office, the workers could do these jobs as well at home as at the office.

ANSWER CHOICE ELIMINATION.

B) Millions of workers have jobs that can be done as well at home as the office, rather than consume the gasoline they must use to get to work.
 • Though the verbal “consuming” has been changed to the verb “consume”, the sentence construction still implies the workers consume gasoline to get to work.
• The comparison “as well at home” is not parallel to “the office”. It implies the “the jobs can be done as well the office”
Incorrect Choice.
 
C) Instead of consuming the gasoline used to get to work, millions of workers have jobs that are able to be done as well at home as at the office.
 • The modifier “instead of …..work” is placed before “workers”. Thus, the meaning is the workers are consuming the gasoline. 
• The awkwardness and wordiness of the original “jobs that are able to be done” is still there.
Incorrect Choice.
 
D) Rather than consume the gasoline used to get to work, millions of workers can do their jobs as well at home as the office.
 • The modifier “rather than …..work” is placed before “workers”. Thus, the meaning is the workers are consuming the gasoline. 
• The comparison “as well at home” is not parallel to “the office”. It implies the “the jobs can be done as well the office”
Incorrect Choice

E) Instead of using gasoline to get to work, millions of workers could do their jobs as well at home as at the office.
 • “instead of using gasoline……work” modifies “workers” which is logical. It is indeed the workers who “USE” gasoline to get to work.
• Also the awkward construction of choice A has been rectified into a concise and logical construction.
Correct Choice

iamdivs · Answer

Can someone confirm if "instead of" + Gerund is correct on GMAT?

I believe I read on Magoosh that GMAT doesn't prefer using instead of followed by a gerund (Although IMO it can since gerund is a noun and it is preceded by a compound preposition). However, the correct choice here seems to do that. I would appreciate if anyone can answer this. Thanks!

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AjiteshArun · Answer

Hi  iamdivs ,

We should check whether the usage is appropriate, but  instead of  +  ing  is a very common pattern in English, and I don't think that we can say that it is not correct on the GMAT.

Millions of workers have jobs that are able to be done as well at home

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GMAT Sentence Correction (SC - EA only) Questions

Millions of workers have jobs that are able to be done as well at home

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