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Difficulty: Very hardEliminating Redundancy

Although the digital archive was designed to be permanent, the fragile physical nature of magnetic tape means that data must be migrated to new media on a regular basis at recurring intervals in order to ensure its long-term preservation.

Which choice most effectively and concisely completes the sentence?

  1. A
    on a regular basis at recurring intervals in order to ensure
  2. B
    regularly. In order to ensure
  3. C
    regularly, this ensures
  4. regularly to ensureAnswer

Answer

regularly to ensure
The option 'regularly to ensure' is correct because it is the most concise choice that preserves the original meaning without introducing grammatical errors. It eliminates the redundant phrases 'on a regular basis' and 'at recurring intervals' and replaces the wordy 'in order to' with the simple infinitive 'to'.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Identify the redundancy in the underlined portion.
The phrases 'on a regular basis' and 'at recurring intervals' both mean the same thing, expressing a repeating schedule. Having both in the sentence is redundant.
ACT English tests reward conciseness and clarity, so redundant expressions must be eliminated.
2
Evaluate the remaining choices for grammatical correctness and conciseness.
The option that changes the phrase to 'regularly. In order to ensure' creates an ungrammatical sentence fragment. The option with 'regularly, this ensures' creates a comma splice by separating two independent clauses with only a comma. The option with 'regularly to ensure' resolves the redundancy and connects the clauses grammatically.
Eliminating grammatically incorrect distractors ensures the final choice is both concise and standard written English.

Key Concept

Eliminating redundancy involves removing repetitive words or phrases that express the same meaning twice, while keeping the sentence grammatically correct.
Estimated Time:1m 0s
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Topics

Eliminating Redundancy

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