Sentence Correction

I received a PM asking me to comment.

This is not a great question. I've seen this one referenced with both A and E as the correct answer. Is this from 1000SC? I really don't recommend studying from that source - some questions are fine, but some are not good questions from which to study.

If this question is from the sets, then this may be an old paper and pencil question - lots of the questions in the sets are (illegally) reproduced from those. Even if it is, I don't think something like this would show up on the GMAT today. It requires us to spend too much time thinking about the intent of the author. They are trying to get away from that now. So I really wouldn't study this one.

There are two plural nouns in the sentence. When looking for pronoun antecedents, we need to consider two things: structure and logic. Logically, "they" refers to "charter vacations." What about structurally? "charter vacations" is the subject of the first verb and it is also the first half of a comparison. "they" is the subject of the second verb and it is also the second half of the previously mentioned comparison. So, we've got a structural match as well - it's okay to say that "they" matches with "charter vacations" and not with "travelers."

Okay, what about D and E? The "they" moves but is still matched with a verb in the sentence, so that also qualifies. The pronoun "it" does not always have to have an antecedent. Think about: "it's raining outside." What's raining outside? The sky? Mother Nature? Nothing, really. So "it" can be used sometimes to refer to an abstract idea, for which there isn't an actual referent in the sentence.

So now how do we decide? Let's start with the first 3, since they're similar. "originally" does dictate a change to past tense, so B and C are out.

A reads: CVs turn out to cost more than they originally seemed to cost. Hmm. Let's put ourselves back in time, two weeks ago, before the charter vacation began. Someone's trying to sell it to us. Do we actually pay it all at the beginning ("originally")? No. If we paid it all at the beginning, then there wouldn't be a different cost during or at the end. Okay, so what we're told right now is what it "will" cost or what it "should" cost - in the future, as we're taking the vacation. There isn't an actual total cost at this point in time but an expected total cost. Once we get to the future point where the actual cost comes into play, that's when we suddenly discover - hey, this is costing a lot more than you told me it would (cost)!

(Is anybody else getting annoyed with our hypothetical travel agent here? )

So the thing that "originally seemed" to be the case is that it would cost a certain amount of money, not that it did cost a certain amount of money. That gets rid of both A and D, leaving us with E.

* * *
For many travelers, charter vacations often turn out to cost considerably more than they originally seemed.
(A) they originally seemed
(B) they originally seem to
(C) they seemingly would cost originally
(D) it seemed originally
(E) it originally seemed they would