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The Battle of Trafalgar was a Pivotal Naval Battle GMAT Sentence Correction

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Question: The Battle of Trafalgar was a pivotal naval battle; the amount of English ships was less than their Franco-Spanish opponents, but the English fleet were victorious on account of their brilliant tactics and superior morale.

A) the amount of English ships was less than their Franco-Spanish opponents, but the English fleet were victorious on account of their brilliant
B) the amount of English ships was less than their Franco-Spanish opponents, but the English fleet was victorious on account of its brilliant
C) the English ships numbered fewer than their Franco-Spanish opponents, but the English fleet was victorious on account of its brilliant
D) the English ships numbered fewer than their Franco-Spanish opponents, but the English fleet were victorious on account of their brilliant
E) the number of English ships was fewer than its Franco-Spanish opponents, but the English fleet was victorious on account of its brilliant

Answer: C
Explanation: The meaning of the sentence above is: English ships were fewer than the Franco-Spanish ships. But, the English fleet won because of its brilliant tactics and morale. "on account of" stands for "because of".

the English ships numbered fewer than their Franco-Spanish opponents, but the English fleet was victorious on account of its brilliant- Correct. The author seems to be putting English ships and Franco-Spanish ships as "opponents". So, "franco-spanish opponents'' here stands for "franco-spanish ships". Hence, the comparison is correct. This choice makes sense and is correct. Let’s examine the other available options.

Option A
the amount of English ships was less than their Franco-Spanish opponents, but the English fleet were victorious on account of their brilliant- Incorrect. Use of "amount" "number" is incorrect. Number is used for things that can be counted, while amount is used for things that cannot be counted. "Ships" can be counted. Thus, "amount" should not be used with "ships".

Option B
the amount of English ships was less than their Franco-Spanish opponents, but the English fleet was victorious on account of its brilliant- Incorrect. Same reason as explained in option A. “amount” and “number” are incorrectly used. Number is used for things that can be counted, while amount is used for things that cannot be counted. "Ships" can be counted. Thus, "amount" should not be used with "ships".

Option D
the English ships numbered fewer than their Franco-Spanish opponents, but the English fleet were victorious on account of their brilliant- Incorrect. Subject verb agreement error. Eliminated for pairing the plural verb "were" with singular subject "English fleet". “Were” is incorrectly used, as it's used in wishful hypothesis.

Option E
the number of English ships was fewer than its Franco-Spanish opponents, but the English fleet was victorious on account of its brilliant- Incorrect. Subject verb disagreement. The number is singular so "ships". "its" refers back to the number of English ships. English ships had the opponents not the number.

“The Battle of Trafalgar was a pivotal naval battle”- is a GMAT sentence correction question. These types of questions contain grammatical errors and we have to choose the correct statement from the options. This topic is the GMAT sentence correction comes with four options and candidates need to choose the one which is correct. GMAT sentence correction is a part of GMAT verbal. It checks whether the candidate is able to decode the inaccuracy in the sentence. It also checks if they are able to bring out an idea or meaning of the context.

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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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