In a Blow to Those Who Still Harboured the Illusion that E-mail Exchanges are Private

Question: In a blow to those who still harbored the illusion that E-mail exchanges are private, a watchdog group recently uncovered a trick for enabling an interloper to rig an E-mail message so that this person will be privy to any comments that a recipient had added as the message is forwarded to others or sent back and forth.

(A) who still harbored the illusion that E-mail exchanges are private, a watchdog group recently uncovered a trick for enabling an interloper to rig an E-mail message so that this person will be privy to any comments that a recipient had added
(B) who had still been harboring the illusion that E-mail exchanges are private, a watchdog group recently uncovered a trick for enabling an interloper to rig an E-mail message so that this person was privy to any comments that a recipient might have added
(C) who still were harboring the illusion that E-mail exchanges are private, a watchdog group recently uncovered a trick enabling an interloper to rig an E-mail message so that this person is privy to any comments that a recipient would add
(D) still harboring the illusion that E-mail exchanges are private, a watchdog group recently uncovered a trick that enables an interloper to rig an E-mail message so that this person will be privy to any comments that a recipient might add
(E) still harboring the illusion that E-mail exchanges had been private, a watchdog group recently uncovered a trick that will enable an interloper to rig an E-mail message so that this person was privy to any comments that a recipient might add

“In a blow to those who still harbored the illusion that E-mail exchanges are private” - is a GMAT sentence correction question. These types of questions contain grammatical errors in the underlined sentence and we have to choose the correct statement from the options. GMAT sentence correction is a part of GMAT verbal.

Answer: D

Explanation:

The given sentence correction question is tested by the given-below rules:

• Parallelism
• Comparison of two elements
• Modifiers

In a blow to those who still harbored the illusion that E-mail exchanges are private, a watchdog group recently uncovered a trick for enabling an interloper to rig an E-mail message so that this person will be privy to any comments that a recipient had added as the message is forwarded to others or sent back and forth.

“enabling” is a present participle. However “for enabling” is not a present participle. It becomes a gerund because it is preceded by a preposition "for". For enabling means for the enablement of. However “a trick enabling” is a present participle, the verb + ing form is modifying the noun before “trick”.

This problem is about what type of verb tense to be written for expressing a general finding. A, B, and C become irrelevant because of using the wrong tense in the verb.

Let us check all the given options -

(A) In this argument “who still harbored” is not properly portraying the message. Also the line “uncovered a trick for enabling an interloper” seems redundant.
(B) “who had still been” is past perfect tense and it makes it incorrect. “might have added” seems a little off. B is not correct
(C) It has also the same redundant line as option A. “uncovered a trick for enabling an interloper” is redundant. C is not correct.
(D) “Still harboring” is present in continuous and perfectly fits here. “Uncover a trick that enables” is in present tense hence D is the correct answer.
(E) The line still harboring the illusion is wrong, it should’ve been till harbors the illusion. “Will enable” is future tense but the argument is talking in present. We're dealing with something that's happening in the immediate present. The verb "enables" is the correct grammar.

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