Correcting Modifier Placement Errors - GMAT Verbal

“Wearing patriotic pins” modifies the noun “congressman” not “cloakroom”; therefore, it must be placed directly after the word “congressmen.”

A majority is singular, so the verb "to believe" must agree with that verb form. Additionally, there is an ambiguous modifier at the end of the sentence. "National level" refers to policy, not people; therefore, it must be placed next to "policy," the noun that it modifies.

As constructed, the sentence reads that the "newspaper," an inanimate object, is what is working overtime, rather than the individuals actually putting in the work. The phrase needs to be reworked to show what is actually working. "With its staff working overtime to produce the first issue" is the only answer choice that makes the correct change.

In the original sentence, "gleefully" is an ambiguous modifier. Is the President gleeful when giving his orders to the group, or is he telling the group to themselves be gleeful when they greet the ambassadors? The correct answer shifts the word to make things clearer. All of the other options have errors of their own.

The example sentence is unclear because the pronoun "them" has an unclear antecedent. In the example, "them" could refer either to the coworkers or the papers, and is therefore ambiguous. The correction would be simply to specify that it is "the papers" that are being replaced.

The example sentence includes an ambiguous modifier. In the example sentence, "strictly" is not placed close enough to the verb it modifies, and is thus it is impossible to know whether the supervisor gave his instruction "strictly" (meaning in a strict manner), or whether he or she was providing a restriction on what the employees kept track of (i.e. to keep track "strictly" meaning only of the time spent away from their desks). The best correction here would be to move "strictly" closer to "instructed," making it clear that the manner of instruction is being modified. The correct version of the sentence reads, "Our supervisor strictly instructed us to keep track of the time we spent away from our desks."

Here, “seething with anger” needs to describe who comes right after the comma. Thus, “Seething with anger, I slammed the door behind me” is the only answer choice that makes sense.

The sentence as written contains a dangling modifier, in that "the sun" is not what is "coming upon the hills." The sentence needs to be rewritten to show that the travelers were the ones "coming upon the hills." "As the travelers came upon the hill, the sun began setting behind them," is the correct answer choice.

The phrase "Rounding the corner" is a type of error is known as a "dangling modifier." What is described as "rounding" is not "the mountains" as the sentence's construction implies by having "the mountains" immediately follow the introductory phrase "Rounding the corner." "The group" is the noun being described by "Rounding the corner," so to correct this sentence's ambiguity, the sentence should be arranged so that "the group" is the noun that immediately follows "Rounding the corner." Thus, the correct answer is "The mountains loomed large in front of the group as they rounded the corner."

When the sentence begins with a descriptive phrase (e.g. prepositional or adverbial), the subject of that phrase should immediately follow. Only two choices correctly place the Subject, but one omits the primary verb, creating a new structure issue.

The sentence as written contains what is known as a "dangling modifer," as the introductory clause does not describe action taken by the subject, "noises." This means the sentence needs to be fixed to make the subject fit with its modifying clause. The best choice among the answers is "Walking at night through the graveyard, people hear noises that seem."

The best answer fixes the dangling participle that starts the sentence (the subject of the main clause should be the one doing the action described in the opening phrase), and uses a logical coordinator.

This sentence has a dangling participle; its word order separates "forced to draw a freehand map of the United States" from its object, "her," by a significant amount. The sentence can be made clearer by making sure that the object described by its introductory phrase immediately follows that phrase. The best answer choice, "she suddenly forgot all of her knowledge of geography," fixes this and keeps the adverb “suddenly” close to its verb, resulting in the sentence, "Forced to draw a freehand map of the United States, she suddenly forgot all of her knowledge of geography."

Here, the modifying phrase is misplaced: it is Francis, not the nausea, that ate too much food. Choose the answer which places the subject close to the modifier and also makes grammatical sense.

The sentence as written contains a dangling modifier, as the construction of the sentence implies the skyscrapers are what is "coming around the corner." The word order can be changed to make this much more clear. The correct answer is "Coming around the corner, the people got a view of the skyscrapers across the river."

The sentence as written contains a dangling modifier, as it is constructed in a manner that makes it seem as if "the path" is "unaware of" "any problems ahead." To correct this, the sentence's word order needs to be reversed so that the introductory phrase is immediately followed by the noun it describes—"the convoy," not "the path." "Unaware of any problems ahead, the convoy followed the path for miles" is the only answer choice that corrects this error. "Unaware of any problems ahead, the convoy following the path for miles" is incorrect because "following" is acting as a participle (that is, like an adjective describing "convoy"), and so the sentence does not contain a predicate and is thus a fragment.

As it is written, the initial sentence suggests that the speaker and author of the term paper is a murderous dictator, which is almost certainly not the speaker's intended claim. To fix this, we need to bring the modifying clause closer to the person to whom it is referring. One way that we can do that is by reversing the order of the two clauses.

This sentence contains a dangling participle. A dangling participle is a participle in an introductory phrase that makes reference to the wrong noun. As written, it appears as if "the sun" is doing the "noticing," when "the children" should be the ones doing the "noticing." Rearranging the sentence so that "the children" is the noun that follows the introductory phrase rids the sentence of its dangling participle.

The sentence as written contains a dangling modifier, which confusingly makes it read like the park was what rounded the corner. The only answer choice that fixes this issue and is grammatically correct is "As the tourists rounded the corner, the park was right in front of them."