Sentence Correction

Hi aditya8062,

Good for you, eliminating A because of the wrong use of "little skills" - you are correct, because "few" should be used instead of "little" when modifying countable items. The point is that the workers do not have many skills, rather than the skills they have being very small in size. This allows us to eliminate both answer A and B.

To answer your question about A, the phrase "that have depressed wages of workers" is indeed a problem, because it is missing the definite article "the." A better answer is "that have depressed the wages of workers." Remember that a definite article indicates that its noun is a particular one (or ones) identifiable to the listener, in this case the wages of workers with few skills. Answer C is correct.

You are correct that the phrase "economic shifts having depressed" conveys the same meaning as "economic shifts that have depressed," but this answer choice was already eliminated because of the "little skills" problem.

As an aside, we can eliminate answers D and E because those choices incorrectly claim that wages have skills, instead of workers.

I hope this helps.

Hi again aditya8062,

The definite article for both singular and plural nouns, is "the." We use the definite article to indicate specific nouns (a person, place or thing), rather than general ones. For example:

The cattle know the safest way home to their barn.

The sentence above refers to specific cattle and a safe way home; it contrasts with the much more general observation that:

Cattle know the safest way home to their barn.

The latter example refers to cattle in general and their specific ways home.

No, your revised answer B is not correct. A comma between "shifts" and "having" would help, but the real problem is the second independent clause suggests that the anti-poverty initiatives have depressed the wages of workers.