Correcting Phrase, Clause, and Sentence Errors - GMAT Verbal

Appositive phrases, which rename a noun, are set off by commas from the rest of the sentence. However, "Richard Melville" is not itself an appositive renaming "the Englishman," as it tells us which Englishman the sentence is talking about, rather than renaming a known Englishman "Richard Melville."

This sentence is correct as written. Appositive clauses that supply additional information should be surrounded by commas.

In the sentence, the phrase "a new tool for sports franchises" is an appositive phrase, a phrase that adds extra meaning to the subject "projections," but is not a part of the main subject of the sentence. Any such appositive phrase must be set apart from the rest of the sentence with commas, both before and after the phrase. "The projections, a new tool for sports franchises, gave" is the only answer choice that correctly places commas around the phrase.

When "neither" is used in a sentence, "nor" should follow it, creating the structure "neither X nor Y," where X and Y are items formatted in the same manner. To correct the sentence, we need to change "and definitely not" to "nor." Several answer choices do this: "nor faithful to the original film," "nor were it faithful to the original film," and "nor was it faithful to the original film." "Nor were it faithful to the original film" and "nor was it faithful to the original film" might each look like potentially correct answers, but each introduces a verb that disrupts the parallel structure of "neither X nor Y," in which "nor" should be immediately followed by "faithful to the original film." The correct answer is thus "nor faithful to the original film," making the corrected sentence, "The remake of the film was neither enjoyable nor faithful to the original film."

The correct form for this sentence is "neither . . . nor." In addition, "neither . . .nor" leads to use of the singular form "is"rather than "are_."_

In standard English, when you use the phrase "not only" in a sentence, it should be followed by the phrase "but also." So, the correct answer is "When she went to the zoo, Lyndsey got to see not only tigers, but also polar bears, iguanas, and toucans."

Only answer choice "the heroine, Catherine, must choose between true love and social preeminence" correctly uses "and" with the preposition "between."

The other answer choices, including the original text "the heroine, Catherine, must choose between true love or social preeminence," contain an incorrect idiomatic expression. When we have "between," we typically need the word "and"—rather than "or"—to separate the entities that follow.

When using "neither . . . nor" with singular nouns, the verb of the sentence must be conjugated to agree with a singular noun. Also, you must make sure that you are making "apples to apples" comparisons. Some of the answer choices compare the theory of Adam Smith to Karl Marx (the person), not to Karl Marx's theory, which would be the correct way to make the comparison.

Correlative conjunctions must conserve the parallel structure of the items in the sentence. In this case, we need "fascinated" and "showed" to be conjugated in the same way. The latter cannot be treated as an independent clause (i.e., "it showed") when we use words like "both" because it would not make sense as a stand-alone sentence (i.e., "The analysis both fascinated Amy").

The correlative conjunction phrase that is underlined in the sentence does not feature parallel verb forms, using the past tense "shortened" and the present tense "provides." Any correlative conjunction phrase needs to feature a parallel structure with each verb being in the same tense. The only answer choice which has the correct parallel structure is "not only shortens wait times but also provides better service for customers."

Correlative conjunctions are used in specific pairs: "either" must be paired with "or" and "neither" must be paired with "nor" when you want to use them as correlative conjunctions. When using these correlative conjunctions, it is also important to remember to use parallel phrasing with each element that is being associated through the use of the conjunction.

Neither always goes with nor, and either always goes with or. Neither neither nor either go with "and."

"Not only" is a conjunction that always correlates with "but also;" furthermore, "but also" is sufficient, adding "as well" on top of that is needlessly repetitive.

"Just as . . . so too" is the proper form of the correlative conjunction in this instance, establishing the relationship (one of similarity) between the two examples mentioned in the passage.

The correlative conjunctions “either” and “or” get paired together here. In "either . . . or" sentences, the two options being discussed (in this case, going to the toy store and going to the ice cream parlor) must be presented in a grammatically parallel way so that the words following “either” and the words following “or” are parallel phrases. In this case, “to the toy store” and “to the ice cream parlor” are the only options that are parallel; otherwise, you’re comparing apples and oranges.

The correlative conjunctions “neither” and “nor” belong together. In "neither . . . nor" sentences, the two options (“pleased with their poor work” and “willing to accept their rowdy behavior”) must be presented in a grammatically parallel way so that the words following “neither” and the words following “nor” are parallel phrases.

The correct correlative conjunction pair here is "neither/nor." No comma is needed. The other pairings listed are either mismatched or inappropriate. The correct correlative conjunction for "either" is "or."

Although the constituents in the list are a bit convoluted, this can be boiled down to a simple either A or B. A and B each have an "and," which can make the sentence seem more confusing, but, when simplified, it can be easier to tell that the sentence is describing a choice BETWEEN two options (both of which include two items and an "and"), so the "and" between "quizzes" and "one" needs to be replaced with "or."

The word “which_”_ does not have an antecedent noun, and so the construction is incorrect in the two answer choices in which it is present. Similarly, in the sentence implementing “this,” there is no noun to which it refers. The final incorrect answer leaves the modifier “passing through the manifold” dangling too far from the noun to which the modifier refers.