Responding to decades of urban sprawl and declining historic neighborhoods, city planners in Charleston—recipients of the 2019 National Preservation A...

GMAT Standard English Conventions : (Grammar) Questions

Source: Prism

Standard English Conventions

Form, Structure, and Sense

HARD

...

Notes

Post a Query

Responding to decades of urban sprawl and declining historic neighborhoods, city planners in Charleston—recipients of the 2019 National Preservation Award—studied and then adapted successful European conservation strategies _____ a comprehensive plan that has revitalized the downtown district.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

creating

to create

created

and creating

Solution

Sentence Structure

Responding to decades of urban sprawl and declining historic neighborhoods,
- city planners in Charleston—
  - recipients of the 2019 National Preservation Award—
- studied and then adapted successful European conservation strategies
  - (?) a comprehensive plan
    - that has revitalized the downtown district.

Understanding the Meaning

Let's read from the beginning to understand what's happening.

'Responding to decades of urban sprawl and declining historic neighborhoods'

This sets up the context—it's telling us what prompted the action.
Urban sprawl means cities spreading out in uncontrolled ways,
and historic neighborhoods were declining.

'city planners in Charleston—recipients of the 2019 National Preservation Award—'

These are the people doing something about the problem.
The part between the dashes just gives us extra information about them (they won an award).

'studied and then adapted successful European conservation strategies'

Here's what the planners did: two main actions.
First, they studied strategies from Europe.
Then, they adapted those strategies (changed them to fit Charleston).

Now we reach the blank: 'strategies _____ a comprehensive plan that has revitalized the downtown district.'

This is where we have the blank. Let's look at the choices:

creating
to create
created
and creating

To see what works here, let's understand what the sentence is telling us about the relationship between these parts!

'a comprehensive plan that has revitalized the downtown district'

This tells us about a plan—a complete, thorough plan.
This plan has revitalized (brought new life to) downtown Charleston.

Now, what's the relationship between:

'adapted successful European conservation strategies'
and 'a comprehensive plan'?

What do we notice about the structure here?

The main actions of the sentence are 'studied' and 'adapted'—these are what the city planners DID.
The comprehensive plan is not another separate action they took.
- Instead, it's the GOAL or PURPOSE of adapting those strategies.
- They adapted strategies FOR WHAT REASON? To create a plan.
When we want to show the purpose or goal behind an action, we use the infinitive form: 'to + verb'

So we need: to create

This clearly expresses that creating the plan was the goal of adapting the strategies.

GRAMMAR CONCEPT APPLIED

Using Infinitives to Express Purpose or Goal

When you want to show WHY someone did something—what their goal or intended outcome was—you use an infinitive (called an infinitive of purpose in grammar terms). The pattern is: to + base form of verb

Pattern:

Main action: She studied hard
Purpose/goal: to pass the exam
→ "She studied hard to pass the exam"

Another example:

Main action: The company invested in new technology
Purpose/goal: to improve efficiency
→ "The company invested in new technology to improve efficiency"

In our question:

Main action: city planners adapted successful European conservation strategies
Purpose/goal: to create a comprehensive plan
→ "city planners adapted strategies to create a comprehensive plan"

The infinitive "to create" clearly signals that creating the plan was the intended outcome—the reason for adapting the strategies. This is much clearer than other verb forms that might suggest separate actions or unclear relationships.

Answer Choices Explained

creating

✗ Incorrect

This present participle would either try to modify "strategies" or act as another verb
But it doesn't establish a clear purpose relationship
The structure becomes unclear—is "creating" describing the strategies or adding another action?
It fails to show that the plan was the GOAL of their work

to create

✓ Correct

Correct as explained in the solution above.

created

✗ Incorrect

This past tense verb would try to add a third main action
But it's not properly connected to "studied and adapted"—you'd need coordination like "and created"
Without proper connection, this creates a grammatical fragment
It also doesn't express the purpose relationship needed here

and creating

✗ Incorrect

This attempts to coordinate three actions: "studied and adapted... and creating"
But this breaks parallel structure—the first two verbs are past tense (studied, adapted), while "creating" is not
It also misrepresents the meaning by suggesting they did three separate things
Creating the plan wasn't a third independent action—it was the PURPOSE of adapting the strategies

Rate this Solution

Tell us what you think about this solution

...

Forum Discussions

Start a new discussion

Post

Previous Attempts

Loading attempts...