Sentence Correction

Through experimenting designed to provide information that will ultimately prove useful in the treatment of hereditary diseases, mice have received bone marrow transplants that give them a new gene.

A. Through experimenting designed to provide information that will ultimately prove
B. Through experiments designed to provide information ultimately proving
C. In experimentation designed to provide information that ultimately proves
D. In experimenting designed to provide information ultimately proving
E. In experiments designed to provide information that will ultimately prove

Hello Everyone!

Let's start by breaking down the major differences between each of these options to narrow them down to the one right answer!

Through experimenting designed to provide information that will ultimately prove useful in the treatment of hereditary diseases, mice have received bone marrow transplants that give them a new gene.

(A) Through experimenting designed to provide information that will ultimately prove
(B) Through experiments designed to provide information ultimately proving
(C) In experimentation designed to provide information that ultimately proves
(D) In experimenting designed to provide information ultimately proving
(E) In experiments designed to provide information that will ultimately prove

After a quick scan over the options, a couple major differences stand out:

1. Their beginnings: Through vs. In ; experimenting/experiments/experimentation
2. Their endings: prove/proving/proves

If we tackle #1 first, we'll eliminate a few options right away, so let's start there.

Since we know that mice received bone marrow transplants during experiments, it's clearer and more concise to say "experiments" than saying they got transplants via "experimentation" or "experimenting," which sounds wishy-washy and vague. Here is why it's clearer to say "experiments:"

In experiments = Full, stand-alone experiments (from start to finish) were dedicated to finding a cure for cancer by giving mice bone marrow
Through experimenting/experimentation = Not clear if done as a stand-alone experiment, or done informally outside of a formal experiment process

This means we can eliminate options A, C, and D because they use words that aren't as clear and concise as they need to be.

Now we're left with only options B and E to choose from, which is much more manageable! Let's move on to #2 on our list: proving / will ultimately prove.

(B) Through experiments designed to provide information ultimately proving

This is INCORRECT because the phrase "ultimately proving" doesn't convey the meaning we're going after. The sentence should say that the experiments done in the present will be important in the future. If you really wanted to use it, you would also need to put a comma before "ultimately" for it to work. Also, it's not idiomatic to say "through experiments." It's better to say "in experiments" instead.

(E) In experiments designed to provide information that will ultimately prove

This is CORRECT! It uses the idiomatically correct "In experiments," and it properly indicates the future tense for "will ultimately prove."

There you have it! Option E is correct!


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