Sentence Correction - 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."

The rules of apostrophes say that you must ues an apostrophe after the "s" of a plural noun that ends in "s" but before the "s" if the noun is pluarl and irregular (e.g., teeth). Mr. Jones could be Mr. Jones' or Mr. Jones's, depending on convention.

As it is written, the sentence portrays the president as working with the "leader's of his own party," which has an inappropriate use of the possesive form. The sentence must be corrected to make the word a simple plural form by taking out the apostrophe. Therefore, the correct answer choice is "with his political enemies almost as much as leaders of his own party."

In this sentence, "three weeks" is actually a possessive, as the sentence could be rearranged as "\[the\] worth of three weeks" and mean the same thing. Therefore, "weeks" should be changed into the possessive form "weeks'." As the only answer choice that appropriately makes this change, "roughly three weeks' worth of work" is the correct answer choice.

The correct possessive form of men (a plural word) is "men's." There should be no apostrophe used in the word "daughters," as they do not possess anything in this sentence.

The example sentence contains two apostrophe errors. First, "it's" in this case is a contraction of "it is." "Its" (with no apostrophe) is used to signal the possessive (e.g. "the machine performed its function"). The most correct, and appropriately formal, version of this sentence would use "it is."

The travelers' "plans" are in this case simply plural, so no apostrophe is needed. "Plan's" would only be used to signal that something belonged to the plans.

The word "who's" is a contraction of "who is," not the possessive form of "who," as it is used in this sentence. The correct possessive form of "who" is "whose." As the only choice to use the appropriate word, "officials were still unsure who's bag was left unattended" is the correct answer.

This sentence contains an apostrophe error: the sentence uses the word "it's" in the second clause in order to show possession. Unlike other words; however, "its (without an apostrophe)" is the correct possessive form of "it". "It's" is a contraction for "it is." The correct answer choice is "The new campus was finally built; its facilities were considered to be the best.

Attaching 's to a last name (such as Roosevelt) makes it possessive, not plural. For that reason, no apostrophe is necessary here and the suffix should be -s without the apostrophe. The initial semicolon was the appropriate punctuation for the sentence.

Cleveland is a possessor (of "main attractions") in this sentence, and therefore the added possessive "s" should include an apostrophe as well: "Cleveland's." Since there are only two items in the list ("the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and a Botanical Garden"), no comma is necessary to separate the two.

"It's" is a contraction, used to stand in for "it is" or "it has." As evidenced by one of the incorrect answer choices, "it is" makes no sense in this sentence - neither, therefore, does "it's." "Its" (without an apostrophe) is the possessive of "it" and the correct word to use in this sentence.

This sentence misuses an apostrophe. Here, there are multiple cars being possessed by multiple individuals. Since the two individuals are listed separately, they most likely do not own the cars together; therefore, an "'s" should come after both of their names in order to show that they individually own their own cars. If they owned the cars together, then a comma would go after only Jill's name. The correct answer is, "Jack's and Jill's cars were both."

This sentence does not contain an apostrophe where it is needed. The word "wife" is being used in a possessive manner, instead of being plural. The correct form is " wife's," making the correct choice: "The wife's suggestions caused her husband."

This sentence does not contain an apostrophe where it is needed. The word "cars" in this sentence is plural and possessive; the clue that "cars" is plural is the use of the pronoun "they" later on in the sentence. Therefore, an apostrophe should come after the "s" (cars'). When making plural nouns that end in "s" possessive, you simply add an apostrophe to the end - nothing further. The correct choice is, "The cars' quality was so good."