Sound Can Travel Through Water for Enormous Distances

Question: Sound can travel through water for enormous distances, prevented from dissipating its acoustic energy as a result of boundaries in the ocean created by water layers of different temperatures and densities.

(A) prevented from dissipating its acoustic energy as a result of
(B) prevented from having its acoustic energy dissipated by
(C) its acoustic energy prevented from dissipating by
(D) its acoustic energy prevented from being dissipated as a result of
(E) preventing its acoustic energy from dissipating by

“ Sound can travel through water for enormous distances”- 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: C
Explanation: 

Understanding the intended meaning of the sentence is the key to solve this question. Let us see what the intended meaning is:

sound can travel through water for enormous distances. The reason is its acoustic energy is prevented from dissipating by boundaries in the ocean created by water layers of different temperatures and densities.

The following concepts are tested in the sentence:

1. Subject-verb agreement
2. Meaning
3. Modifiers
4. Pronouns

Option A: Incorrect

This option incorrectly states "prevented from dissipating its acoustic energy...", which leads to an incoherent meaning. The intended meaning is that sound can travel through water for long distances because its acoustic energy is prevented from dissipating by boundaries in the ocean created by water layers of different temperatures and densities. We need to remember that in the “phrase + comma + noun” and “noun + comma + phrase” type of constructions, the phrase should always correctly modify the noun.

Option B: Incorrect

This option changes the meaning of "prevented from having its acoustic energy...". The way it is said is different from the intended meaning. Option B uses the passive voice construction "prevented from having its acoustic energy dissipated", leading to awkwardness and redundancy. The way it says means that sound is prevented from having the acoustic energy, which is absolutely false.

Option C: Correct

This option removes the errors seen in Options A and B. It is also free from the verb form error seen in Option E. This option uses the phrase "its acoustic energy prevented from dissipating", correctly modifies the preceding clause to convey the intended meaning as stated above. Also, this option is free of any awkwardness or redundancy.

Option D: Incorrect

This option uses the phrase "prevented from being dissipated as a result of", which leads to an awkward meaning of the sentence. This does not fit the sentence or the meaning. Hence,. It is incorrect.

Option E: Incorrect

Option E changes the meaning of the sentence through the phrase "preventing its acoustic energy from dissipating". In this option, the use of the "comma + present participle” incorrectly implies the meaning. This means that sound can travel through water for enormous distances and as a result, sound prevents its acoustic energy from dissipating due to boundaries in the ocean created by water layers of different temperatures and densities. The intended meaning and the meaning of the sentence changes totally. Hence, it is incorrect. 

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