Tilling Means Preparation of the Soil to Plant the Seeds 

Question: Tilling means preparation of the soil to plant the seeds and keeping the soil in the best condition to help the crop grow until it is ready for harvesting.

1. Tilling means preparation of the soil to plant the seeds and keeping the soil in the best condition to help the crop grow until it is ready for harvesting
2. Tilling means preparing the soil to plant the seeds and keeping the soil in the best condition to help the crop grow until it is ready to harvest
3.  Tilling means preparation of the soil to plant the seeds and keeping the soil in the best condition for helping the crop grow until it is ready for harvesting
4. Tilling means preparing the soil to plant the seeds and to keep the soil in the best condition to help the crop to grow until it is ready to harvest
5. Tilling means preparing the soil to plant the seeds and keeping the soil in the best condition to help the crop grow until it is ready to be harvested

“Tilling means preparation of the soil to plant the seeds”- is a GMAT sentence correction question. This particular GMAT sentence correction topic has been taken from the book ‘501 GMAT Questions’. This question checks tense and grammar. This is a practice, system, or philosophy concept question. 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: B
Explanation: 

This sentence above gives us a general fact. It explains a phenomenon or a process which is known as tilting.

Now, we know that facts should always be presented in simple tense. There is no need to use past tense to explain or define a phenomenon.

The following concepts are tested in the sentence:

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

Option A: Incorrect

Tilling means preparation of the soil to plant the seeds and keeping the soil in the best condition to help the crop grow until it is ready for harvesting - This is an example of ism error. We cannot keep “preparation” and “keeping” Parallel to one another. We usually don't make simple gerunds (-ing nouns without "the") parallel to action nouns (preparation, development, maintenance, etc.). Hence, this is incorrect. 

Option B: Correct

Tilling means preparing the soil to plant the seeds and keeping the soil in the best condition to help the crop grow until it is ready to harvest - The statement has “To harvest” - Here, the intention is clearly shown. Also, the statement modifies the error made in option A which is “preparation” and “keeping” was kept parallel. Here, preparation is changed to preparing. Hence, this is the closest option as of now. 

Option C: Incorrect

Tilling means preparation of the soil to plant the seeds and keeping the soil in the best condition for helping the crop grow until it is ready for harvesting- The sentence has similar error as the option A. Hence, we can directly rule this out. 

Option D: Incorrect

d)Tilling means preparing the soil to plant the seeds and to keep the soil in the best condition to help the crop to grow until it is ready to harvest - This also has an ism error where “preparing” and “to keep” is kept parallel. If it would have been “preparation”, we could have considered this option. Hence, this is also incorrect. 

Option E: Incorrect

Tilling means preparing the soil to plant the seeds and keeping the soil in the best condition to help the crop grow until it is ready to be harvested- here we have a Tense Issue. - to be harvested - The statement mentions that crops to be harvested - somewhat passive. Also this means that it is not done yet or is not within the process of being done. Since explaining a process should be in the present tense, E is wrong.

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