Sentence Correction

This is a very good advanced level question. It tests your understanding of modifiers and pronouns. It also tests your understanding of the intended meaning of the sentence.

Since most of you were able to eliminate choices A and D, I will concentrate on Choices B, C, and E.

Lets begin the solution:
Step 1 - Read the original sentence and understand the meaning.

Heavy commitment by an executive to a course of action, especially if it has worried well in the past, makes it likely to miss signs of incipient trouble or misinterpret them when they do appear.

(Note that even though you were all able to eliminate choice A, we still need to review this choice to understand the meaning that the correct choice is intended to communicate).

1. Sentence talks about an executive who is heavily committed to a course of action
2. This course of action has worked well in the past
3. Because of this heavy commitment, the executive is likely to miss the signs of trouble when they appear.
Step 2 - We will understand the errors in this sentence:

Pronoun Error - ..makes it likely to...- "IT" has no clear antecedent. The sentence must specify clearly that executive is likely to miss the signs...
Thus, choice A is eliminated

Step 3 - Process of Elimination or Choice Analysis

Choice B
An executive who is heavily committed to a course of action, especially one that worked well in the past, makes missing signs of incipient trouble or misinterpreting ones likely when they do appear.

This choice changes the intended meaning of the sentence. Here is what this sentence communicates:
1. Executive is heavily committed to a course of action - Same as Intended Meaning
2. Executive makes missing signs of trouble likely - Different from Intended Meaning
Thus, choice B states that executives makes the missing of signs likely, whereas, the intended meaning is that the heavy commitment to the course of action makes missing signs likely.

Choice C

An executive who is heavily committed to a course of action is likely to miss or misinterpret signs of incipient trouble when they do appear, especially if it has worked well in the past.
This choice does not distort the original meaning of the sentence. However, from this sentence it is not clear as to what has worked well in the past. Thus, this sentence has pronoun reference error for "it"

Choice E

Being heavily committed to a course of action, especially one that has worked well in the past, is likely to make an executive miss signs of incipient trouble or misinterpret them when they do appear.
This choice maintains the intended meaning:
1. Action of being heavily committed to a course of action causes the effect.
2. The effect is that the executive misses signs of trouble
Note here that the phrase "being heavily committed to a course of action" is the subject for the verb "is".

Let me know if this makes sense to you.

Also, I would like to say that please do not reject a choice just because it has the word "being". You must do a careful analysis of each choice and pick the choice that communicates the intended meaning without any grammatical errors.

For e-GMAT Users, all Sentence Correction questions are solved using a step by step process. These solutions can be found in the 9 Application Files and UGE. (Total of 150+ questions)