Sentence Correction
Answers & Explanations
1. E
Notice that three choices contain the word amount and
two choices contain number. People, because they can be
counted, come in numbers rather than amounts. (E) is best because
of the remaining two because the phrase an even greater amount
of people clearly refers to more people, while a number of
people even larger could be referring to bigger people.
2. D
(A) is awkwardly worded and the pronoun they has more
than one possible antecedent. In (B) the two verbs linked by
and aren't parallel; "were convicted" doesn't match
"ranging." In choice (C), "the ranging of convictions" is awkward
and unidiomatic. Choice (E) is wordy. (D) is the best choice.
3. B
Choices (A) and (D) are wrong because when should be
used only to refer to a time, and where should be used
only to refer to a place. Choices (C) and (E) are wordy and
awkward.
4. C
In this sentence, the students want to do something (change
careers); the proper idiom is hope to instead of hope
for. So eliminate (A) and (B). The use of exchange for
is incorrect in choice (D). In choice (E), something's missing;
this version of the sentence doesn't specify what the "drab jobs"
are being exchanged for. Choice (C) is correct.
5. D
The original has two mistakes. First, there's a problem with
subject/verb agreement. It's also unclear what the word
their refers to—public or UFOs. Logically,
it would seem the reference is to the public, but public
is singular; so we would have to use its, not
their. Choice (B) is awkward. Choices (C), (D), and (E)
change the sentence's structure so that the word belief
becomes the only subject—now we need a singular verb. Only (D)
contains the singular verb has.
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