November is Traditionally the Strongest Month for Sales of Light Trucks

Question: November is traditionally the strongest month for sales of light trucks, but sales this past November, even when compared with sales in previous Novembers, accounted for a remarkably large share of total vehicle sales.

1. But sales this past November, even when compared with sales in previous Novembers,
2. But even when it is compared with previous Novembers, this past November’s sales
3. But even when they are compared with previous Novembers, sales of light trucks this past November
4. So that compared with previous Novembers, sales of light trucks this past November
5. So that this past November’s sales, even compared with previous Novembers’ sales,

“November is traditionally the strongest month for sales of light trucks”- is a GMAT sentence correction question. This particular GMAT sentence correction topic has been taken from the book ‘The Official Guide of GMAT Verbal Review, 2nd Edition, 2009’. This question checks Parallelism, Comparison of two elements and Modifiers. GMAT Sentence Correction questions comprise 11-16 questions to be completed within 65 minutes. Each Sentence Correction question contains a sentence with an underlined portion that includes 0-2 errors.

Answer: A
Explanation: The given sentence correction question can be tested by the given-below rules:

1. Meaning
2. Pronouns
3. Comparison
4. Redundancy

Option A: Correct
This option is correct because it uses the phrase “but…even when” that correctly conveys the intended meaning that November is traditionally the strongest month for the sale of light trucks, but when it is compared with the sales in the previous Novembers, sales this past November accounted a large share of the total vehicle sales. Also, this option accurately compares “sales this past November” and “sales in the previous Novembers”. So, Option A is correct.

Option B: Incorrect
This option is incorrect because it uses the singular pronoun “it” to refer to the plural noun “sales”. Also, this option incorrectly compares “sales” to “previous November”. Always remember that comparisons can be made between similar elements only. A verb can not be compared to a noun. Option B also awkwardly uses the phrase “it is compared” which leads to redundancy. So, Option B is incorrect.

Option C: Incorrect
This option is incorrect because it incorrectly compares “they” (sales) to “previous Novembers”. We know that comparisons can only be made between similar elements. It also uses the phrase “they are compared” which leads to awkwardness and redundancy. So, Option C is incorrect.

Option D: Incorrect
This option is incorrect because it incorrectly compares “previous Novembers” to “sales”. A comparison must always be made between similar elements. Also, this option uses the phrase “so that compared with previous Novembers” which conveys a wrong meaning. The “so that” used in this phrase completely alters the intended meaning of the sentence and for that reason, Option D is incorrect.

Option E: Incorrect
This option is incorrect because it changes the meaning of the sentence by using the phrase “so that this past November’s sales”. It implies that November is traditionally the strongest month for light truck sales and for this reason, when compared with sales in previous Novembers, sales in the past November accounted for a large share of the sales. So, Option E is incorrect.

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