Despite making a real effort,the house always seemed

Question

Despite making a real effort,  the house always seemed neater when Jill tidied up than James.

A.the house always seemed neater when Jill tidied up than James.
B.the house seemed neater always if Jill tidied up then James.
C.Jill always tidied the house more neatly than James.
D.Jill always seemed neater tidying the house than James.
E.James never tidied the house as neatly as Jill.

Source:800Score

MikeScarn · Answer

The opening modifier "Despite making a real effort" is intended to refer to James' effort.

Therefore, "James" must be immediately after the comma.

Only  (E)  correctly assigns the opening modification to James.

merttural11 · Answer

The way i see, all the options have either different meanings than the original sentence has or they're grammatically incorrect.

The OA is not necessarily the corrected version of the original sentence, but rather a grammatically correct sentence with a similar meaning. Should this be justified?

NiftyNiffler · Answer

Despite making a real effort,  the house always seemed neater when Jill tidied up than James.

From the meaning of the sentence, the modify should modify the person who is less tidy than the other. So, E is the clear winner here.

A.the house always seemed neater when Jill tidied up than James.  -- wrong modifier 
B.the house seemed neater always if Jill tidied up then James.  -- wrong modifier 
C.Jill always tidied the house more neatly than James.  -- wrong modifier 
D.Jill always seemed neater tidying the house than James.  -- wrong modifier 
E.James never tidied the house as neatly as Jill.  -- CORRECT for reason mentioned above

jaisonsunny77 · Answer

Despite making a real effort,  the house always seemed neater when Jill tidied up than James.

Okay. Here, we need to understand two key points:

Point #1: In this prompt, the first clause begins with a contradiction word 'Despite'. This means that whatever action that followed the first clause was not sufficient (or satisfactory). The correct answer will highlight this contradiction clearly.

Point #2: We need to know who or what failed to meet the satisfactory level.

Keeping these two points in mind, we can now proceed to analyze the available answer choices

A. the house always seemed neater when Jill tidied up than James.  -Wait a minute. Is it the house that failed to meet the satisfactory level? Or was it jill? Or James? Since we are not sure who performed below par, this option is incorrect. Hence,  eliminate (A)

B. the house seemed neater always if Jill tidied up then James.  - Has the same mistake highlighted in (A). Hence,  eliminate (B)

C. Jill always tidied the house more neatly than James.  - This tells us that Jill is the person who failed to meet the standard (based on the connection with the first clause). But, if you read the second clause, it is Jill who actually performed the task better than James. So, (C) is contradictory. Hence,  eliminate (C).

D. Jill always seemed neater tidying the house than James.  -  Eliminate (D)  for the same reasons as in (C)

E. James never tidied the house as neatly as Jill.  - This introduces the contrast perfectly; we now know that it is James who failed to meet a standard, and it is Jill who performed better (at the task) than James. There is no meaning error in (E). Hence,   (E) is the right answer.

kunalsinghNS · Answer

Despite making a real effort, the house always seemed neater when Jill tidied up than James.

E.James never tidied the house as neatly as Jill.

The best answer seems E but doesn't E presents two meanings ?

1. James never tidied the house as neatly as he never tidied Jill.
2. James never tidied the house as neatly as Jill did.

Please let me know the inputs.

Shrinkhla21 · Answer

The answer is E.

The opening modifier is supposed to refer to an entity so that the sentence has meaning.

Right now, real effort is pointing to the house which makes no sense. It should obviously refer to James because it is despite his efforts that the house is still not as tidy as when Jill cleans it.

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Despite making a real effort,the house always seemed

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GMAT Sentence Correction (SC - EA only) Questions

Despite making a real effort,the house always seemed

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