Question

The Vice President of the local bank spoke for a half an hour and told his colleague that he, his colleague, must consider finding a new job, or accept a reduction in salary.

• A. For a half hour and told his colleague that he must consider to find a new job
• B. For half an hour and told his colleague that the colleague must get employed by a new bank
• C. For half an hour and told his colleague to consider finding a new job
• D. No change

Answer 1

Answer: (C)

For half an hour and told his colleague to consider finding a new job

Let’s examine the sentence: “The Vice President of the local bank spoke for a half an hour and told his colleague that he, his colleague, must consider finding a new job, or accept a reduction in salary.” The part of the sentence, ‘his colleague that he, his colleague, must consider,’ contains too many words referring to the same person. So, we need to remove all the unnecessary words to make the sentence crisp and meaningful. All the words from ‘that’ to ‘must’ should be removed and the noun ‘colleague’ can be linked with verb ‘consider’ with the preposition ‘to.’ So the best alternative for the underlined part of the sentence is Option C, which is the correct answer.
Options A and B are not the best alternatives as they are still using extra words in this segment of the sentence.