Sentence Correction

Hi mukherjee.tanuj3,

One of the Style rules that you have to remember for SCs is that sentences are not supposed to have "filler" (phrases that just make a sentence longer, but provide no additional meaning). The phrase "...the fact that...." is a filler phrase that is pointless, so it should be eliminated.

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich

Hi there,
Let's follow the meaning-based approach and analyze the original sentence first. After we are sure about the meaning of the sentence, we will do the error analysis on the sentence.

Meaning Analysis of the Original Sentence
As the honeybee's stinger is heavily barbed, staying where it is inserted, this results in the act of stinging causing the bee to sustain a fatal injury.

The sentence starts off by saying 'As the honeybee's stinger is heavily barbed.' So, the author wants to create a cause-and-effect relationship in this sentence. 'As' means 'because' in this context.
The second part says 'staying where it is inserted'. This part tells us more about the stinger. When it is inserted in a particular place, it stays stuck there.

This results in the act of stinging causing the bee to sustain a fatal injury: This part is the 'effect' in the cause-effect structure of the sentence. Since the stinger is barbed and stays stuck where it is inserted, the bee sustains a fatal injury when it stings.

So, the meaning of the sentence is pretty clear.

Errors in the Original Sentence

Now, let's look for errors in this sentence.

Error 1: The word 'this' should refer to a specific noun that has already been mentioned in the sentence. However, in this case, 'this' incorrectly refers to the entire preceding part of the sentence: i.e., the fact that the stinger is barbed and stays where it is inserted. 'This' cannot perform this function.

Error 2: 'As' has already indicated the cause-effect relationship in the sentence, so the word 'results' unnecessarily repeats the same meaning. This is a redundancy error.

Answer Choice Analysis

Now that we have identified the two errors in the sentence, the process of eliminating the incorrect options becomes much easier.

Option B repeats the redundancy error from option A, so it can be eliminated. It also has a sentence structure error, since it has only dependent clauses and no independent clause.

Options C and D are interesting choices because they appear to be grammatically correct. This is where the meaning-based approach becomes crucial in solving SC questions. Both C and D are incorrect because they distort the intended meaning of the sentence. "Stinger" is the subject of the verb "results". So, according to both choices, the stinger results in something. However, this is not the intended meaning of the sentence. The fact that the stinger is barbed and stays where it is inserted leads to the result.

Option E cleverly uses a group of words beginning with "with" to correctly indicate the intended meaning. This group of words is a prepositional modifier. Such modifiers are very versatile because they can refer not just to nouns but also to actions. So, the group of words starting with "with" correctly refers to the entire preceding part of the sentence, and correctly tells us what results in the effect described in the sentence.

I hope this helps!

Regards,
Meghna