Question
A study of children of divorced parents found that ten years after the parents’ divorce, children who had been under six years of age at the time of the settlement were not preoccupied, nor very curious, about the reasons that led to their parents’ divorce.
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
- A study (Main Subject)
- of children (Prepositional Phrase – modifies “study”)
- of divorced parents (Prepositional Phrase – modifies “children”)
- of children (Prepositional Phrase – modifies “study”)
- found that (“found”: Main Verb)
- ten years after the parents’ divorce, (Prepositional Phrase – modifies the verb “were”)
- children (Subject of the “that” clause)
- who had been under six years of age (Relative Clause – modifies “children”)
- at the time (Prepositional Phrase – modifies “had been”)
- of the settlement (Prepositional Phrase – modifies “time”)
- at the time (Prepositional Phrase – modifies “had been”)
- who had been under six years of age (Relative Clause – modifies “children”)
- were not preoccupied, nor very curious, (“were”: Verb for the “that” clause)
- about the reasons (Prepositional phrase – modifies both “preoccupied” and “curious”)
- that led to their parents’ divorce (Dependent Clause – modifies “reasons”)
- about the reasons (Prepositional phrase – modifies both “preoccupied” and “curious”)
A study of children of divorced parents was conducted. This study found that children who had been very young at the time of their parents’ divorce were not very concerned with the reasons for the divorce ten years after the divorce.
There are two problems in the sentence:
- The preposition “about” in “about the reasons” works with “curious” but not with “preoccupied”. The correct preposition with “preoccupied” is “with”.
- “Nor” can be used with “not” only when a verb follows “nor”. Since an adjective “curious” follows “nor” here, we need to use “or” in place of “nor”. Refer this link for more information about this use.
Option Analysis
(A) Incorrect. For the errors mentioned above.
(B) Correct. not preoccupied with, or even very curious about, the reasons for their parents’ divorce.
(C) Incorrect. For the following reasons:
- The preposition “with” doesn’t work with “curious”.
The word “parents” needs to have an apostrophe at the end since it modifies “divorce”.
(D) Incorrect. “Neither… or” is idiomatically incorrect.
(E) Incorrect. For the following reasons:
- Singular “it” has been used for the plural “reasons”.
- “The reasons that their parents divorced” is not correct. Two ways in which it can be corrected:
- The reasons that their parents divorced for
- The reasons why their parents divorced
If you have any doubts regarding any part of this solution, please feel free to ask in the comments section.
This solution was created by Chiranjeev Singh and Anish Passi.
