Sentence Correction

Although the term "psychopath" is popularly applied to an especially brutal criminal, in psychology it is someone who is apparently incapable of feeling compassion or the pangs of conscience.

A] it is someone who is

B] it is a person

C] they are capable who are

D] it refers to someone who is

E] it is in reference to people



The OA is D. For me it came down to the options D and E, but the I am not convinced as to why the OA is or cannot be E.

I know that E is a bit awkward but it is correct grammatically i feel.

Please do reply as to why E is wrong explaining the reason carefully.


Thank You.

[email protected] wrote:Although the term "psychopath" is popularly applied to an especially brutal criminal, in psychology it is someone who is apparently incapable of feeling compassion or the pangs of conscience.

A] it is someone who is

B] it is a person

C] they are capable who are

D] it refers to someone who is

E] it is in reference to people



The OA is D. For me it came down to the options D and E, but the I am not convinced as to why the OA is or cannot be E.

I know that E is a bit awkward but it is correct grammatically i feel.

Please do reply as to why E is wrong explaining the reason carefully.


Thank You.

I agree with you that both D and E are grammatically correct. However, D uses a verb (refer), where E uses a noun (reference). It its my understanding that when in doubt the GMAT prefers a verb to a noun. Correct me if I'm wrong.

The expression "it is in reference" used in answer E is stylistically flawed. It is a very formal expression used to say what you are writing or talking about, especially in business letters,
e.g.
I am writing to you in reference to the job opening in your department.

Also here we are talking about the term "psychopath" which is singular. But people is plural. So we cannot apply singular things to plural one.
In the first one, it is correctly mentioned that "Psychopath is applied to an brutal criminal". It didn't say it is applied to brutal criminals.

gh_chandra2000 wrote:Also here we are talking about the term "psychopath" which is singular. But people is plural. So we cannot apply singular things to plural one.
In the first one, it is correctly mentioned that "Psychopath is applied to an brutal criminal". It didn't say it is applied to brutal criminals.

This is the biggest thing that jumped out to me as well.

Yes I think whatever gh_chandra2000 wrote is the reason that why E is not the correct answer.

The overall non-underlined part is in the singular tense and so how can the underlined part be having a plural verb. Also the overall sentence is in the singular verse itself.

Thank You!!!

[email protected] wrote:.. but the I am not convinced as to why the OA is or cannot be E....

Might sound nitpicky here, but your question should be:

.. but the I am not convinced as to why the OA is not or cannot be E....

By the way, I read the OE for E and it says that E needs a main verb used and then says: Oh by the way, even if E had "used" (is used in reference to), the construction would be awkward and much wordier : ).

Also, when we are talking about singular and plural, it is the term that is singular (and not psychopath). In other words, even if the sentence construction was "term psychopaths", it would not have changed anything.

On a side note, OG12 has the following AWA:

Assuming that the term "business relations" can refer to the decisions and actions of any organization

Go figure: ).

EducationAisle wrote:[
Also, when we are talking about singular and plural, it is the term that is singular (and not psychopath). In other words, even if the sentence construction was "term psychopaths", it would not have changed anything.

On a side note, OG12 has the following AWA:

Assuming that the term "business relations" can refer to the decisions and actions of any organization
Go figure: ).

isn;t what you mentioned above is contradictory. First you mentioned that 'psychopaths' would not change the singular and plural case and then you quoted an instance where case is affected
I think case WILL be affected...
term psychopaths should refer to plural entity and not singular... term psychopaths refers to all those who are.....

Hi Vikram, perhaps the color coding in my post was the source of confusion. What I meant was that both the following would be correct:

1. Although the term "psychopath" is popularly applied to an especially brutal criminal, in psychology it refers to someone who is apparently incapable of feeling compassion or the pangs of conscience.

2. Although the term "psychopaths" is popularly applied to especially brutal criminals, in psychology it refers to someone who is apparently incapable of feeling compassion or the pangs of conscience.

Basically "it" in both the above cases refers to "term" and it doesn't matter whether we use "psychopath" or "psychopaths".