Question

Starfish, with anywhere from five to eight arms, have a strong regenerative ability, and if one arm is lost it quickly replaces it, sometimes by the animal overcompensating and growing an extra one or two.

• A. One arm is lost it quickly replaces it, sometimes by the animal overcompensating and
• B. One arm is lost it is quickly replaced, with the animal sometimes overcompensating and
• C. They lose one arm they quickly replace it, sometimes by the animal overcompensating
• D. They lose one arm they arequickly replaced, with the animal sometimes overcompensating
• E. They lose one arm it is quickly replaced, sometimes with the animal overcompensating

Answer 1

Answer: (B)

One arm is lost it is quickly replaced, with the animal sometimes overcompensating and

Here, 'it quickly replaces it' jumps out at the reader as inappropriate. In this clause, 'it' is a singular pronoun and needs to refer to the plural noun 'starfish'. So, we can notice that there is a pronoun error. Apart from this, the use of two 'it's this close to each other, to refer to two different things blurs the meaning. Also, in the sentence the 'then' is in active form when it needs to be in the passive form (as the 'if' clause is in passive form).Another notable error in the sentence is 'sometimes by the animal'. The use of 'sometimes' changes the meaning of the sentence by implying that the starfish only sometimes replaces the arm (what about the other times). These errors are rectified by B where 'sometimes' correctly modifies 'overcompensating' and denoting that the overcompensating is done sometimes. Therefore option B is the correct answer as opposed to the other choices which either repeat the original errors or create errors of their own.