Question
The tourism commission has conducted surveys of hotels in the most popular resorts, with the ultimate goal of reducing the guests who end up expressing overall dissatisfaction with the service in the hotels.
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 understand the meaning of the sentence:
The tourism commission has conducted surveys of hotels in the most popular resorts. The aim of conducting these surveys is to reduce the number of guests who express dissatisfaction with the service in the hotels.
There is one main problem with the sentence: it says “goal of reducing the guests”. The goal must be “reducing the number of guests”, not as given. Right?
Also, one way to improve the sentence is to replace “end up expressing” with “express”. Both communicate the same meaning, the latter more concisely. Also, the relevance of “end up” is not clear in this context.
Option Analysis
(A) Incorrect. For the reasons mentioned above.
(B) Incorrect. There are two problems (not errors) with this option:
- “ultimate goal to reduce” means that the final objective is to reduce the number of guests. “goal to ultimately reduce” means that the objective is to eventually reduce the number of guests. The first meaning seems more logical.
- “who end up expressing” – Same problem as explained in the Sentence analysis
(C) Incorrect. For the following reasons:
- It is not clear what “ultimately” modifies
- “with the hotel service” should be placed right after ‘dissatisfaction’.
(D) Incorrect. The singular verb “ends” does not agree with the plural subject “guests”. Also, “end up expressing” is better replaced by “express”.
(E) Correct. The error and the problem in the original sentence have been rectified in this option. Please note that in this correct option, possessive form (hotel’s service) has been used with an inanimate object (hotel).
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Hi Chirnajeev
Please help me understand if the subject is “the number of guests” or “guests” . I feel its “the number of guests” which should table singular verb expresses . Hence E) should be incorrect. Please help.
Hi Vikas,
In option E, you mean ‘who’ refers to ‘the number of guests’? It cannot since ‘who’ can refer only to people, not to a number. Besides, ‘a number’ cannot express dissatisfaction! Right?
I hope it helps. Let me know if you have any further queries.
– Chiranjeev
Hi CJ,
In Option D, can “that” refer to “guests” ?
In your explanation, you mentioned that plural “guests” do not agree with singular verb “ends (up)”, so it seems “that” refers to “guests”.
Ideally, ‘who’ should be used for people.
Ideally? Not always?
English changes over time. The use of “that” to refer to people isn’t very common now but is picking up.
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