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Difficulty: MediumEliminating Redundancy

The committee members debated the proposal for hours. Ultimately, they failed to reach a consensus of opinion that they all agreed on.

Which of the following choices most effectively and concisely replaces the underlined portion of the passage?

  1. A
    NO CHANGE
  2. Ultimately, they failed to reach a consensus.Answer
  3. C
    Ultimately, they failed to reach a consensus, they could not agree.
  4. D
    Although they ultimately failed to reach a consensus.

Answer

Ultimately, they failed to reach a consensus.
The correct choice is the most concise option that preserves the sentence's meaning without adding redundant phrases or grammatical errors. The option that reads 'Ultimately, they failed to reach a consensus.' successfully removes the repetitive words 'of opinion' and 'that they all agreed on' because a consensus by definition is a shared opinion or agreement.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Identify the redundant words or synonyms in the underlined portion of the sentence.
The phrase 'consensus of opinion that they all agreed on' repeats the concept of mutual agreement multiple times, as 'consensus' already implies an agreement of opinion.
To maintain conciseness, repetitive phrases that express the same idea must be eliminated.
2
Evaluate the remaining options for grammatical correctness and conciseness.
The option starting with 'Although' creates a sentence fragment, while the option ending with 'they could not agree' creates a comma splice.
Eliminating grammatically incorrect options leaves the most concise and correct choice.

Key Concept

Eliminating Redundancy
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Topics

Eliminating Redundancy

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