Although Jane kept up appearances and seemed to be fine, the deciding

Question

Although Jane kept up appearances and seemed  to be fine, the deciding to leave her husband took a huge toll on her .

A. to be fine, the deciding to leave her husband took a huge toll on her

B. fine, deciding to leave her husband took a toll on her

C. fine, the deciding to leave her husband took a huge toll on her

D. to be fine, the decision to leave her husband took a huge toll on her

E. fine, the decision to leave her husband took a huge toll on her

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szcz · Answer

I am unable to understand the difference in the usage between "seemed to be" and "seemed". After doing some digging, I have come across this link https://ell.stackexchange.com/questions ... d-of-seems. The long and short of this link is that "seemed to be" is used for objective facts and "seemed" is used for subjective opinions. Also this same link mentions that the usage is highly interchangeable. I would like to know if I can follow the above rule.
Experts kindly help. GMATNinja Bunuel KarishmaB IanStewart

KarishmaB · Answer

GMAT wouldn't ask you to make a distinction. Normally people use them interchangeably.

Frankly, I am not sure I get the distinction mentioned on that link. If I were to make a distinction between them, I feel "He seemed happy" conveys that "When I met him, at that time, he seemed happy (in those moments)" whereas "He seemed to be happy" conveys more of a state of happiness as in happy in life in this phase. If I think hard about it, perhaps, in part, this distinction does have a subjective vs objective aspect to it.

In any case, as I said, they are mostly interchangeable. We should instead worry about other bigger issues.

Aayush2197 · Answer

If "seems fine" & "seems to be fine" are highly interchangeable, then how do we know what to use here?

Bunuel · Answer

OFFICIAL EXPLANATION

Although Jane kept up appearances and seemed  to be fine, the deciding to leave her husband took a huge toll on her .

A. to be fine, the deciding to leave her husband took a huge toll on her

This answer choice is grammatically incorrect: an article (in this case,  the ) requires a noun.  Deciding  is not a noun.

B. fine, deciding to leave her husband took a toll on her

While this answer choice corrects the original Parts of Speech mistake, it also changes the meaning of the original sentence by omitting the word  huge .

C. fine, the deciding to leave her husband took a huge toll on her

This answer choice repeats the original Parts of Speech mistake: an article (in this case,  the ) requires a noun.  Deciding  is not a noun.

Note that stylistically, this answer choice is better than the original sentence as it is more concise - the omission of the words  to be  after  seemed  did not result is any meaning loss. However, grammatical correctness is more important than stylistic preferences. The correct answer to a Sentence Correction question can be stylistically flawed (that is, redundant or ambiguous), but can never be grammatically incorrect.

D. to be fine, the decision to leave her husband took a huge toll on her

While this answer choice corrects the original Parts of Speech mistake, it is stylistically flawed (redundant). There is another answer choice that is also grammatically correct and is better than this answer choice as it is more concise, that is expresses the same meaning in fewer words.

E. fine, the decision to leave her husband took a huge toll on her

This answer choice corrects the original Parts of Speech mistake by changing  deciding  to  decision .

Although Jane kept up appearances and seemed to be fine, the deciding

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GMAT Sentence Correction (SC - EA only) Questions

Although Jane kept up appearances and seemed to be fine, the deciding

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