Emergency workers attempted numerous times during the hurricane to

Question

Emergency workers attempted numerous times during the hurricane to  try and rescue several people stranded  on the vessel, but were unable to reach them because of 10-15 foot seas.

A. try and rescue several people stranded

B. try and rescue several people who were stranded

C. try to rescue several people stranded

D. rescue several people, were stranded

E. rescue several people stranded

Bunuel · Accepted Answer

Veritas Prep Official Explanation

There are several obvious decision points that you should notice in your initial scan of the answer choices.

First, you should see the difference between “try to” and “try and” in (A), (B), and (C) and then the fact that “try” is simply removed in (D) and (E).

Since it is a more defining difference, ask why the testmaker has removed “try” in two answer choices and look for a reason in the underlined or non-underlined portion.

If you look back at the beginning of the sentence you already have the verb “ attempted ,” so using “ try ” later in the sentence is  redundant .

You would never say “he attempted to try”.

This leaves the final decision between (D) and (E) – since you are trying to specify exactly what people you are talking about (it is restrictive), you should not have a comma after “people” and (E) is correct.

(D) creates a series that is neither logical nor parallel: “ the workers attempted to rescue…, were stranded…, but were unable… ”

The correct answer is (E).

kron0s · Answer

Emergency workers attempted numerous times during the hurricane to  try and rescue several people stranded  on the vessel, but were unable to reach them because of 10-15 foot seas.

The term 'try' seems redundant with 'attempted' in the same sentence. A, B, C eliminated.

D changes the meaning since the emergency workers were not the ones stranded.

E is correct.

Emergency workers attempted numerous times during the hurricane to

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GMAT Sentence Correction (SC - EA only) Questions

Emergency workers attempted numerous times during the hurricane to

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