The answer to this one is A. No change is needed. What you are looking at here is a list of facts about minivans (carry seven passengers, cost less, better gas mileage, etc) with a dependent clause (compared with most other sport utility vehicles) to other thrown in to confuse you.

The rule is this: the list of facts should be separated by commas, including before 'and'. The rule of dependent phrases is that they are also separated by commas. Therefore the example sentence is not incorrect. But to complete the exercise...

B is wrong because of the 'they' pronoun before cost less. It's unnecessary because it effectively starts a new sentence in the middle of the one we've already got, and ambiguous because it's unclear whether it refers to minivans or other sport utility vehicles. Same thing with answer choice C and E.

D is wrong because 'carrying as many as seven passengers' is unparallel in tense with the rest of the list -- it's in present tense and the rest is in present perfect tense.

Hope this is helpful!

But the OA is D not A.

Can someone help.

Thanks
Amit

@erjamit

the OA is incorrect...danielle's explanation is spot on...there is no change necessary in the org sentence...its parallel and concise...
at times, you may fail to identify the different components of a sentence...you're totally stumped...at this point, you need to read and understand the meaning of the sentence...if the meaning is altered, then you have a problem...in this case, the original sentence conveys the meaning clearly...the other answer options distort (the meaning)...thats my non-grammatical take on the sentence...the grammatical angle has bn taken care of by danielle!

zagcollins wrote:@erjamit

the OA is incorrect...danielle's explanation is spot on...there is no change necessary in the org sentence...its parallel and concise...
at times, you may fail to identify the different components of a sentence...you're totally stumped...at this point, you need to read and understand the meaning of the sentence...if the meaning is altered, then you have a problem...in this case, the original sentence conveys the meaning clearly...the other answer options distort (the meaning)...thats my non-grammatical take on the sentence...the grammatical angle has bn taken care of by danielle!

Hmmmm.....
@ zagcollins just highlighting some part in the sentence with option A plugged in, tell me if it changes ur viewpoint

Minivans carry as many as seven passengers and, compared with most sport utility vehicles, cost less, get better gas mileage, allow passengers to get in and out more easily, and have a smoother ride.


Thoughts??

IMO D
Minivans, carrying as many as seven passengers, compared with most sport utility vehicles, cost less.....
bold is just a middle man, who cares bout it, just plug it in read it w/o the bold part

I go with A. Not sure why OA is D.

For me D sounds as if a minivan carrying 7 passengers (a minivan with 7 passenters in it) is compared with SUV. It should compare minivan to SUV and carrying 7 passenger is a feature of the minivan

D is correct....'carrying as many as...' is just a participial phrase

Guys official answer is : A
This question is from GmatPrep. Other guys probably got it from some other faulty sources.

IMO A

This is from a PBT .. and the OA is definitely wrong. It has to be A

- pradeep