Examkin

Question

Difficulty: MediumEliminating Wordiness

A portion of the passage below is underlined.

In 1964, astronomers Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson were troubleshooting a persistent background hiss in their sensitive horn antenna. Initially, they suspected that the interference was caused by nesting pigeons, which had coated the inside of the instrument with debris. After cleaning the antenna and removing the birds, however, they found that the persistent noise continued to remain and still went on without stopping.

Which of the following options most effectively eliminates wordiness while maintaining the meaning and grammatical correctness of the underlined portion?

  1. A
    they found that the persistent noise continued to remain and still went on without stopping.
  2. the noise persisted.Answer
  3. C
    the noise, which was persisting, continued to keep going.
  4. D
    the noise persisted, it did not stop.

Answer

The noise persisted.
The correct option is the most concise choice. It avoids redundancy by stating that the noise persisted, without repeating the idea of continuation or non-stopping. It fits grammatically into the sentence.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Identify the redundant and repetitive phrases in the underlined portion.
The words 'persistent,' 'continued to remain,' 'still went on,' and 'without stopping' all convey the same basic idea of something continuing over time.
Eliminating redundant words is necessary to make the sentence clear and concise, which is a key rule of standard English conventions.
2
Evaluate the options for conciseness and grammatical correctness.
The option that simply states the noise persisted is the shortest and grammatically correct choice. The option that ends with 'it did not stop' creates a comma splice.
The correct answer must be free of grammatical errors while being as concise as possible.

Key Concept

Eliminating Wordiness
Rate this question

Topics

Eliminating Wordiness

More questions from this topic