Sentence Correction

Hello Everyone!

Let's tackle this question, one thing at a time, and narrow down our options to the correct one! To begin, let's do a quick scan over the options and highlight any major differences in orange:

Linking arrangements among secondary schools and the workplace never evolved in the United States as they have in most other developed countries.

A. among secondary schools and the workplace never evolved in the United States as they have
B. in the United States among secondary schools and the workplace never evolved as they did
C. between secondary schools and the workplace never evolved in the United States as
D. in the United States between secondary schools and the workplace never evolved as they have
E. between secondary schools and the workplace never evolved in the United States as they did

After a quick glance over the options, a couple key differences jump out:

1. among vs. between (Idioms)
2. as they have / as they did / as (Parallelism)

Let's start with #1 on our list: among vs. between. There is a difference between using "among" versus "between" when combining things:

between = 2 items
among = 3+ items

Since we're only talking about 2 items (secondary schools & the workplace), we need to use "between" here:

A. among secondary schools and the workplace never evolved in the United States as they have
B. in the United States among secondary schools and the workplace never evolved as they did
C. between secondary schools and the workplace never evolved in the United States as
D. in the United States between secondary schools and the workplace never evolved as they have
E. between secondary schools and the workplace never evolved in the United States as they did

We can eliminate options A & B because they use "among" to combine 2 things, when "between" is the correct way to say that.

Now that we've narrowed it down a bit, let's tackle #2 on our list: parallelism. We need to make sure that the two items being compared are parallel in nature. Let's look at each option more carefully with the remainder of the original sentence to ensure they are parallel:

C. between secondary schools and the workplace never evolved in the United States as in most other developed countries.
This is INCORRECT because it's creating a false comparison! This sentence is comparing the evolution in the United States to other countries, and NOT the evolution in other countries! This is not a parallel comparison, so let's rule this one out.

D. in the United States between secondary schools and the workplace never evolved as they have in most other developed countries.
This is INCORRECT for a couple reasons. First, whenever we replace the action verb in a comparison, we typically use a form of the verb "to do" (do, did, does) and not "to have" (have, has, had). Second, the sentence is discussing past tense events, yet the verb "have" is present tense, which doesn't match!

E. between secondary schools and the workplace never evolved in the United States as they did in most other developed countries.
This is CORRECT! It uses the past tense "did" to stay consistent with the rest of the sentence, and the phrase "they did" is a parallel replacement for "linking arrangement evolved." This sentence is comparing the evolution in the United States with the evolution in other countries, which is parallel.

There you have it - option E is the correct choice! If you can become familiar with common idioms that appear on the GMAT and understand how to handle comparisons, answering these types of questions on the GMAT should be a breeze!


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