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Difficulty: MediumEliminating Wordiness

In 1957, engineers Alfred Fielding and Marc Chavannes sealed two plastic shower curtains together in an attempt to create a textured wallpaper. This invention, which was created by them for the purpose of covering walls, did not succeed as home decor, but it soon found a new purpose as protective packaging material.

Which of the following choices, if substituted for the underlined portion, would best eliminate wordiness while preserving the meaning of the passage?

  1. A
    NO CHANGE
  2. This inventionAnswer
  3. C
    Because this invention was created to cover walls,
  4. D
    This invention was created to be wallpaper, it

Answer

This invention
The correct option is the most concise and grammatically correct choice. By replacing the wordy, passive, and redundant underlined portion with 'This invention', the sentence becomes direct and clear without losing any essential information.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Identify the main issue with the underlined portion of the sentence.
The phrase is wordy and contains redundant information (stating it was for the purpose of covering walls when it has already been introduced as wallpaper) and passive voice ('was created by them').
ACT English questions testing wordiness require selecting the most concise option that preserves the original meaning and is grammatically correct.
2
Evaluate the answer choices for conciseness and grammatical correctness.
The option containing 'This invention' is the shortest and most direct. The option starting with 'Because' creates a fragment. The option ending in 'it' creates a comma splice.
Eliminating grammatically incorrect options helps narrow down to the correct concise choice.

Key Concept

Eliminating Wordiness
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Topics

Eliminating Wordiness

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