The Word Vixen is a Female Fox.

Question:The word vixen is a female fox.

1. word vixen is
2. word vixen refer to
3. words vixen is
4. word vixen refers to
5. word vixen is in reference to

“The word vixen is a female fox.”- 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: D
Explanation: The following concepts are tested in the sentence:

1. Meaning
2. Tenses
3. Grammatical construction
4. Parallelism
5. Awkwardness

Let us check the options one by one:

1. word vixen is - This choice of answer is incorrect. Here, in the statement, the subject is the word vixen, not vixen. Vixen (not the word vixen) is a female fox. The word vixen refers to or describes a female fox.
   The Stop Sign in the sentence helps us identify the error:
   The word/term... (it) is…
   Hence, this stop sign means that it is not correct.
2. word vixen refer to - This answer choice corrects the original mistake as presented in the question. However, it is grammatically incorrect. The singular subject (The word vixen) does not agree with the plural verb (refer to). The correct one should have been “refers to”. This is also incorrect.
3. words vixen is - This answer choice has the same mistake as the original one. In addition, changing word to words creates a grammatical mistake. The now plural subject The words vixen does not agree with the singular verb is. “Words” does not match with “Vixen”.
4. word vixen refers to - This is the correct option. The singular subject (The word vixen) should be placed with “refers to”. Hence, this is the correct option.
5. word vixen is in reference to - Grammatically this option is fine. However, it does not fit statistically. This can be the second best option after the option D.

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