Sentence Correction

58. Receiver of Wreck is an official of the British government whose main task was to process incoming reports of shipwrecks so as to give legitimate owners the opportunity of retrieving their property and ensure that law abiding finders of wreck receive an appropriate reward.

A. was to process incoming reports of shipwrecks so as to give legitimate owners the opportunity of retrieving their property and ensure that law-abiding finders of wreck receive

B. had been processing of incoming reports of shipwrecks in order to give legitimate owners the opportunity to retrieve their property and ensuring that law-abiding finders of wreck receive

C. has been to process incoming reports of shipwrecks so as to give legitimate owners the opportunity for retrieval of their property and for ensuring that law-abiding finders of wreck received

D. is to process incoming reports of shipwrecks so as to give legitimate owners the opportunity to retrieve their property and ensure that law-abiding finders of wreck received

E. is to process incoming reports of shipwrecks in order to give legitimate owners the opportunity to retrieve their property and ensure that law-abiding finders of wreck receive

I would go with E..........wats the OA?????

B wrong bec of past tense
A,C & D wrong because of the use of incorrect idiom as the correct one is "so x as to be y"........

Black Knight wrote:58. Receiver of Wreck is an official of the British government whose main task was to process incoming reports of shipwrecks so as to give legitimate owners the opportunity of retrieving their property and ensure that law abiding finders of wreck receive an appropriate reward.

A. was to process incoming reports of shipwrecks so as to give legitimate owners the opportunity of retrieving their property and ensure that law-abiding finders of wreck receive

B. had been processing of incoming reports of shipwrecks in order to give legitimate owners the opportunity to retrieve their property and ensuring that law-abiding finders of wreck receive

C. has been to process incoming reports of shipwrecks so as to give legitimate owners the opportunity for retrieval of their property and for ensuring that law-abiding finders of wreck received

D. is to process incoming reports of shipwrecks so as to give legitimate owners the opportunity to retrieve their property and ensure that law-abiding finders of wreck received

E. is to process incoming reports of shipwrecks in order to give legitimate owners the opportunity to retrieve their property and ensure that law-abiding finders of wreck receive

here, because it used present simple thus ignore A and B
C is not parelel " to give legitimate" and for ensuring
d and E left.
in D " received" is wrong because it used past simple. we need present simple tense here
E left

A- wrong..parallel construction error and verb tense
B-"had been processing " is wrong
C-"has been" sounds like....has always been and "for retrieval" sounds awkward
D- wrong...over the surface this seems like the right answer BUT you should always read all the choices and if you pay close attention you will notice that "received" should be receive
E- changes "received" to receive this is correct

Great explanations folks. Yes, option E is indeed the correct answer .

Can anyone share the SC Grail Pdf.
Thanks.

A. was to process incoming reports of shipwrecks so as to give legitimate owners the opportunity of retrieving their property and ensure that law-abiding finders of wreck receive

B. had been processing of incoming reports of shipwrecks in order to give legitimate owners the opportunity to retrieve their property and ensuring that law-abiding finders of wreck receive

C. has been to process incoming reports of shipwrecks so as to give legitimate owners the opportunity for retrieval of their property and for ensuring that law-abiding finders of wreck received

D. is to process incoming reports of shipwrecks so as to give legitimate owners the opportunity to retrieve their property and ensure that law-abiding finders of wreck received

E. is to process incoming reports of shipwrecks in order to give legitimate owners the opportunity to retrieve their property and ensure that law-abiding finders of wreck receive

+1 for E.

Great response, Bharat!

Yes, this one comes down entirely to verb tense. Since we're stuck with "Receiver of Wreck IS an official of the government..." then there's no justification for anything past-tense unless we're otherwise given a reason (e.g. "whose job was to do X until the prime minister reallocated responsibilities..."). Since we're not given any reason to change tense, we need to have an indicative or present tense, as this job currently exists with its responsibilities.

A, B, and C say that the tasks have ceased, and D says that the finders of wreck have already received their reward. As there is no justification for past-tense in any of these cases, they're all wrong, and E is correct.

I'd be careful with the "...so as to..." expression. I don't think it's wrong - I might not choose to write that way but I've seen official questions with correct answers that employed a "so as to" idiom. Just because you haven't seen an idiom before or would prefer to use something different does not make the idiom wrong! You'll almost always - if not "always" itself - be able to solve these problems using logical/recurring decision points like verb tenses and numerical agreements, so look for those things first!

Brian@VeritasPrep wrote:Great response, Bharat!

Yes, this one comes down entirely to verb tense. Since we're stuck with "Receiver of Wreck IS an official of the government..." then there's no justification for anything past-tense unless we're otherwise given a reason (e.g. "whose job was to do X until the prime minister reallocated responsibilities..."). Since we're not given any reason to change tense, we need to have an indicative or present tense, as this job currently exists with its responsibilities.

A, B, and C say that the tasks have ceased, and E says that the finders of wreck have already received their reward. As there is no justification for past-tense in any of these cases, they're all wrong, and D is correct.

I'd be careful with the "...so as to..." expression. I don't think it's wrong - I might not choose to write that way but I've seen official questions with correct answers that employed a "so as to" idiom. Just because you haven't seen an idiom before or would prefer to use something different does not make the idiom wrong! You'll almost always - if not "always" itself - be able to solve these problems using logical/recurring decision points like verb tenses and numerical agreements, so look for those things first!

Hi,
I came across in some book that 'so as to' is never correct on the GMAT. Usage should be so [adjective] as to [verb]. Can you clarify on this.

Cheers!

So as to cannot replace in order to.

In gmat in order to is prefered over so as to just as rather than is preffered over instead of.

i think E is the right answer

Hey Frankenstein:

Hi,
I came across in some book that 'so as to' is never correct on the GMAT. Usage should be so [adjective] as to [verb]. Can you clarify on this.

Cheers!

I'd be really careful with tips like those and:

In gmat in order to is prefered over so as to just as rather than is preffered over instead of.

The GMAT tests "right" or "wrong". It's binary...honestly, as much as I love this website, you're not "supposed to" spend as much time here as many do. The GMAT needs to be the kind of test that a young Warren Buffet aces with 25-30 hours of study. To require Warren Buffet to memorize lists of "well, you could say X but the GMAT really prefers Y" would constitute an awful test, the kind of test that Harvard, Stanford, LBS, and others would just scrap and not use.

I've seen - I'm trying to find it but there are so many OG volumes these days! - an official question in which the correct answer uses "so X as to Y" instead of what most people would prefer "so X that Y". But the problem with the latter phrase isn't the idiom at all - it's attached to an illogical verb tense elsewhere in that choice.

The GMAT right-or-wrong standards don't go based on some arbitrary preference for a particular phrasing. If it's wrong it's DEFINITELY wrong, usually because it would connote an illogical meaning. If you can Google a phrase and find that it's used somewhere properly in the English language, it's not going to be a great tool to use for elimination purposes.

A classic example of this was the word "being", which multiple GMAT books and companies taught as "it's just wrong". Sure enough, within a year or two of my students asking me "why doesn't Veritas teach this trick?" I found an official question in which being was decidedly correct. The GMAT is pretty slick and very, very well-written. Be leery of these preferences and "this phrase is always wrong...on the GMAT at least" type things and focus on those major error categories. That's what they're testing.

It should be E

A and B in past tense so eliminate.

C and D has received in simple past, everything is happening in present so it should instead be simple present.

The answer is E, it gets all the four splits correct, Simple present for is and receive
, parallel to give and to retrieve, and in order to and so as to