Question
A new study suggests that the conversational pace of everyday life may be so brisk it hampers the ability of some children for distinguishing discrete sounds and words and, the result is, to make sense of speech.
Option A
Option B
Option C
Option D
Option E
(This question is from Official Guide. Therefore, because of copyrights, the complete question cannot be copied here. The question can be accessed at GMAT Club)
Solution
Sentence Analysis
Let’s first try to understand the meaning of the sentence:
A new study suggests something about the conversational pace of everyday life. The fast pace may hamper the ability of some children to distinguish discrete sounds and words. As a result, the fast pace may hamper the ability of the children to make sense of speech.
The sentence seems to use an idiomatic construction: so X that Y. In this structure, Y explains the extent of X. In the sentence “it hampers the ability…” seems to explain how brisk the conversational pace is.
The original sentence has the following errors:
- The current structure — “so brisk” followed by an independent clause — is not correct. We need to have “so brisk that it hampers…”.
- “ability for distinguishing” is incorrect. “ability for verb-ing” is always wrong. The correct idiom is “ability to verb”.
- The part after ‘and’ — “and the result is to make sense of speech” — doesn’t make any sense. It’s an independent clause, but as is, it doesn’t lead to any sensible meaning. At best, it can mean that the result of the previous clause (which talks about hampering the ability to distinguish sounds) is to make sense of the speech. Clearly, illogical.
Option Analysis
(A) Incorrect. For the reasons explained above.
(B) Correct. This option corrects all the errors in the original sentence. The parallelism here is between “to distinguish discrete sounds and words” and “to make sense of speech”. “as a result” after ‘and’ clarifies the chain of causality.
(C) Incorrect. For the following reasons:
- Two independent clauses are not joined properly. Since we have an independent clause after “and” – they are unable – we need to join it with the previous IC with comma+and. The comma is missing before ‘and’.
- “The result of this” is a noun phrase dangling alone without a verb. It cannot grammatically modify the whole clause as it logically needs to. The correct phrasing would be “as a result of this”.
- Even if we correct both of the above problems in this option, this option is still going to be inferior to the correct option B. For example:
- X hampers the ability of children to do A and, as a result, to do B.
- X hampers the ability of children to do A, and, as a result, they are unable to do B.
Out of these two constructions, the first is better phrased than the second since it presents the same idea in a more concise way.
(D) Incorrect. In this option “results” is parallel to “hampers”, leading to the structure: “The pace is so brisk that it results in not making sense of speech”. As we can see, it is not clear who is not making sense of speech.
(E) Incorrect. The construction “so adjective as to verb phrase explaining the adjective” is correct. This option is incorrect for the following reasons:
- “ability for distinguishing” is incorrect. “ability for verb-ing” is always wrong. The correct idiom is “ability to verb”.
- “resulting in being unable” – In this construction, it is not clear who is being unable to make sense of speech.
Please could you comment on my approach. I was unable to understand your explanation for (C)
When I look at the correct choice
(B) It hampers the ability of some children
(a) to distinguish discrete sounds and words,
as a result
(b) it hampers the ability to make sense of speech
Now when I look at (C) the two entities are not parallel –> Parallelism issue (it doesn’t use parallel structure to describe the two things that are hampered in the sentence)
But what got me to actually eliminate (C) is that the IC (They are unable to make…) is not separated by “,and” –> deterministic error
You are right. There is a deterministic error in option C. Thank you for pointing it out! 🙂
Also, while two independent clauses are parallel currently in option C, the parallel elements of option B make more sense.
(I’ll edit the explanation above).
Option B can be boiled down to the following structure:
“The pace hampers the ability to distinguish X and Y and to make Z”
Could you comment on the multiple usages of “and”
I believe the there should be a “comma” before the second and (i.e. , and to make Z) in order to make it clear that X and Y are one group while Z is another
The second comma is not needed. It’s clear which elements are parallel. Can there be any confusion here? Rather, the use of a comma before ‘and’ would indicate that there are three elements there, leading to more confusion.
Let’s look at this sentence: I want to eat some pasta and pizza and to play football.
Is there any issue here?
Hi CJ,
In option C, if we add a verb to the noun phrase “the result of this”, would it then be correct? What would “this” refer to in that case?
My understanding is that “this” is a demonstrative pronoun and should not be used to refer to an idea/action mentioned in the previous clause?
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