Sentence Correction

22．In recent years cattle breeders have increasingly used crossbreeding，in part that their steers should acquire certain characteristics and partly because crossbreeding is said to provide hybrid vigor.
(A) in part that their steers should acquire certain characteristics
(B) in part for the acquisition of certain characteristics in their steers
(C) partly because of their steers acquiring certain characteristics
(D) partly because certain characteristics should be acquired by their steers
(E) partly to acquire certain characteristics in their steers

Can you guys help me out here?
i went for the answer D, because i thought it was parallel to the second part of the sentence, but OG doesn't think so
what do you say? to what part am i not paying attention?

hoji wrote:22．In recent years cattle breeders have increasingly used crossbreeding，in part that their steers should acquire certain characteristics and partly because crossbreeding is said to provide hybrid vigor.
(A) in part that their steers should acquire certain characteristics
(B) in part for the acquisition of certain characteristics in their steers
(C) partly because of their steers acquiring certain characteristics
(D) partly because certain characteristics should be acquired by their steers
(E) partly to acquire certain characteristics in their steers

Can you guys help me out here?
i went for the answer D, because i thought it was parallel to the second part of the sentence, but OG doesn't think so
what do you say? to what part am i not paying attention?

The choice D and E has a BIG difference. D is wrong for at least two reasons:

1. D is passive, which makes the steers an agent of the verb "acquire".
2. D changes the intended meaning of the sentence.

Cattle breeders have used crossbreeding -------------to acquire something.

E is correct.

gmat_perfect wrote:

hoji wrote:22．In recent years cattle breeders have increasingly used crossbreeding，in part that their steers should acquire certain characteristics and partly because crossbreeding is said to provide hybrid vigor.
(A) in part that their steers should acquire certain characteristics
(B) in part for the acquisition of certain characteristics in their steers
(C) partly because of their steers acquiring certain characteristics
(D) partly because certain characteristics should be acquired by their steers
(E) partly to acquire certain characteristics in their steers

Can you guys help me out here?
i went for the answer D, because i thought it was parallel to the second part of the sentence, but OG doesn't think so
what do you say? to what part am i not paying attention?

The choice D and E has a BIG difference. D is wrong for at least two reasons:

1. D is passive, which makes the steers an agent of the verb "acquire".
2. D changes the intended meaning of the sentence.

Cattle breeders have used crossbreeding -------------to acquire something.

E is correct.

Also i think in Op E, "to acquire certain characteristics in their steers.." is parallel to "to provide hybrid vigor" in the non-underlined portion

sentences with strong words like "should" needs to be avoided mostly in GMAT.............

thank you guys...

Hey guys,

Piling on here in our reasons for eliminating D...

The pronoun "their" in D has some problems. Does it refer back to "breeders" or to "characteristics"? It's at best unclear, and I'd actually say that the construction of the sentence makes it seem like it refers back to "characteristics" (after all, you'd say "certain children should be disciplined by their parents", so why wouldn't you say "certain characteristics should be acquired by their...").

Since pronoun reference/agreement is a major error category that you know the GMAT tests often, I'd be on the lookout for those things primarily. I've seen a lot of wrong answers with "should" in them, too, but I think it's tricky to train yourself to avoid an entire word like "should" or "being" - if it didn't have a proper or acceptable usage, why would it even exist?

Totally missed this one..you're right....the parallelism does look quite convincing here..

atulmangal wrote:

gmat_perfect wrote:

hoji wrote:22．In recent years cattle breeders have increasingly used crossbreeding，in part that their steers should acquire certain characteristics and partly because crossbreeding is said to provide hybrid vigor.
(A) in part that their steers should acquire certain characteristics
(B) in part for the acquisition of certain characteristics in their steers
(C) partly because of their steers acquiring certain characteristics
(D) partly because certain characteristics should be acquired by their steers
(E) partly to acquire certain characteristics in their steers

Can you guys help me out here?
i went for the answer D, because i thought it was parallel to the second part of the sentence, but OG doesn't think so
what do you say? to what part am i not paying attention?

The choice D and E has a BIG difference. D is wrong for at least two reasons:

1. D is passive, which makes the steers an agent of the verb "acquire".
2. D changes the intended meaning of the sentence.

Cattle breeders have used crossbreeding -------------to acquire something.

E is correct.

Also i think in Op E, "to acquire certain characteristics in their steers.." is parallel to "to provide hybrid vigor" in the non-underlined portion