Correcting Phrase, Clause, and Sentence 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."

Appositive clauses that supply additional or optional information must be contained within commas. Since we do not need to know that Melissa is the Treasure of Acme Inc. that information must be contained by commas. The correct answer also uses the active voice.

This appositive clause (that John Smith is a notable economist at a certain university) is necessary to understand the meaning of the sentence; therefore, it must not be surrounded by commas. If it is surrounded by commas, the identify of the John Smith in the sentence is still not known because he has several other colleagues that go by the same name. Presumably, identifying him as "the notable economist" removes this ambiguity.

This sentence is correct as written. Appositive clauses that supply additional information should be surrounded by commas.

In the sentence, the phrase "a new tool for sports franchises" is an appositive phrase, a phrase that adds extra meaning to the subject "projections," but is not a part of the main subject of the sentence. Any such appositive phrase must be set apart from the rest of the sentence with commas, both before and after the phrase. "The projections, a new tool for sports franchises, gave" is the only answer choice that correctly places commas around the phrase.

In the sentence, "the thirteenth-century philosopher and theologian" is an appositive that renames "Thomas Aquinas"; appositives are set off by commas at both ends, as in the credited response. No comma is needed between "philosopher" and "theologian," however. Because "thirteenth-century" is being used as an adjective in this case a hyphen is needed.

The appositive phrase that renames "John Duns Scotus" is "the most notable Scholastic philosopher of the generation after Aquinas." Commas are required at both ends of this complete phrase to set it off, but commas are not needed before the prepositional phrases "of the generation" or "after Aquinas."

Appositive phrases, which rename a noun, are set off by commas from the rest of the sentence. However, "Richard Melville" is not itself an appositive renaming "the Englishman," as it tells us which Englishman the sentence is talking about, rather than renaming a known Englishman "Richard Melville."

In this case, an appositive comes at the beginning of the sentence, renaming "Richard Melville" as "one such transitional figure" among many. Appositives must be set off by commas from the rest of the sentence if they contain information that is unnecessary for understanding the rest of the sentence. Since taking out the appositive phrase ("One such transitional figure, who worked . . .") yields a complete sentence, the appositive "Richard Melville" must be set apart by commas.

"scheduled to take place at 2:00" is an appositive phrase, adding meaning to the subject "the seminal presentation. Appositive phrases such as these should be offset by commas at both beginning and end. Such phrases often rename the subject of a sentence.

"an early advocate..." is an appositive, further describing, renaming, or defining the subject of the sentence (in this case "Jeremy Bentham" is being classified as "an early advocate for various civil right and liberties"). Appositives such as these should be offset by two commas, one each before and after.

"The music sharing service considered a threat to copyright protection" is a phrase modifying the subject noun "Napster." It is an appositive phrase and should, therefore, be offset by two commas. Appositives define or rename the subject of the sentence, in this case Napster (the subject) is being re-characterized as "the music sharing service considered a threat to copyright protection." The appositive must be offset with commas because it is outside of the fundamental grammatical structure of the sentence.

When "neither" is used in a sentence, "nor" should follow it, creating the structure "neither X nor Y," where X and Y are items formatted in the same manner. To correct the sentence, we need to change "and definitely not" to "nor." Several answer choices do this: "nor faithful to the original film," "nor were it faithful to the original film," and "nor was it faithful to the original film." "Nor were it faithful to the original film" and "nor was it faithful to the original film" might each look like potentially correct answers, but each introduces a verb that disrupts the parallel structure of "neither X nor Y," in which "nor" should be immediately followed by "faithful to the original film." The correct answer is thus "nor faithful to the original film," making the corrected sentence, "The remake of the film was neither enjoyable nor faithful to the original film."

The correct form for this sentence is "neither . . . nor." In addition, "neither . . .nor" leads to use of the singular form "is"rather than "are_."_