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Displays of the Aurora Borealis, or "Northern Lights", can Heat the Atmosphere GMAT Sentence Correction

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Question: Displays of the aurora borealis, or "northern lights", can heat the atmosphere over the arctic enough to affect the trajectories of ballistic missiles , induce electric currents that can cause blackouts in some areas and corrosion in north-south pipelines.

(A) to affect the trajectories of ballistic missiles, induce
(B) that the trajectories of ballistic missiles are affected, induce
(C) that it affects the trajectories of ballistic missiles are affected and induces
(D) that the trajectories of ballistic missiles are affected and induces
(E) to affect the trajectories of ballistic missiles and induce

Correct Answer: E
Explanation: “.... to affect the trajectories of ballistic missiles and induce electric currents that can cause….” - Correct. The answer choice depicts the two effects “ to affect the trajectories of ballistic missiles and induce electric currents” in an equal way. The two effects are conducted to separate in a grammatical construction that joins to affect and to induce in a correct way. The displays can heat the atmosphere to accomplish two effects. The conjunction “and” is correctly placed between the two effects to make the sentence structurally parallel. The answer choice depicts a straight and precise sentence. There lies no doubt in reading the statement since it satisfies the proper construction. Therefore, option E is the correct answer. Let’s take a look at the other options.

Option A

“....to affect the trajectories of ballistic missiles, induce electric currents that can cause…” - Incorrect. The answer choice suggests that displays can heat the atmosphere to accomplish two effects. One is to affect the trajectories and the other one is (to) induce electric currents. Here in this answer choice, the conjunction “and” is required to make the sentence logical and correct. The “comma” between the two effects makes the sentence irrelevant and distorts the meaning of the original sentence. Hence option A is the incorrect answer as it does not satisfy the rules of grammar. Hence option A gets eliminated.

Option B

“...that the trajectories of ballistic missiles are affected, induce electric currents that can cause…”- Incorrect. The answer choice depicts a passive statement that makes the sentence completely illogical and irrelevant. The misuse of passive voice drives the meaning of the sentence complicated and incorrect. The answer choice violates the use of the idiom and gives rise to an incorrect arrangement of verbs “are affected, induce”. Hence, option B does not satisfy the rules of grammar. Therefore, option B is the incorrect answer and hence gets eliminated.

Option C

“...that it affects the trajectories of ballistic missiles are affected and induces electric currents that can cause….” - Incorrect. There is a pronoun issue in this answer choice. The pronoun “it” mentioned in this statement indicates the activity that “northern lights can heat the atmosphere”. The pronoun should indicate other nouns rather than an action. Moreover, the answer choice violates the idiom “enough to” and makes the meaning of the sentence completely illogical and irrelevant. The construction of the sentence is not correct and hence distorts the meaning of the sentence. Hence option C is the incorrect answer and thereby gets eliminated.

Option D

“....that the trajectories of ballistic missiles are affected and induces electric currents that can cause…” - Incorrect. The answer choice violates the idiom “can heat the atmosphere… enough to” of the original sentence by the use of “that”. The answer changes the tenses in an illogical way. The answer choice depicts a passive statement that makes the sentence completely illogical and irrelevant. The misuse of passive voice distorts the meaning of the sentence. The answer choice gives rise to an incorrect arrangement of verbs “are affected and induces”. Therefore. there is a parallelism issue in this answer choice. Option D does not satisfy the grammatical construction of the sentence. Hence, option D is the incorrect answer and thereby gets eliminated.

“Displays of the aurora borealis, or "northern lights", can heat the atmosphere”- is a GMAT sentence correction question of the GMAT exam. These sorts of questions consist of grammatical errors in the underlined part of the sentence. The candidates need to verify the subject-related error, nouns, pronouns, and conjunction of the sentence. The candidates need to examine whether there is any parallelism error in the sentence or not. The candidates must verify the intended meaning of the sentence and should analyse the answer choices properly to determine the correct answer. The candidates must check whether the construction of the sentence is correct or not. The candidates should provide logical explanations to elaborate their ideas and concepts. The candidates need to choose the correct statement given in the options. The GMAT sentence correction section demands satisfactory grammar skills since the candidate has to identify common grammatical errors. GMAT sentence correction is a part of GMAT verbal.

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*The article might have information for the previous academic years, please refer the official website of the exam.

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