Practice GMAT Sentence Correction Question

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Many United States Congressmen recently voted to give the National Security Agency new powers enabling them to eavesdrop on telephone calls without a court warrant and pass along evidence from the calls to other government agencies.

A)	enabling them to eavesdrop on telephone calls without a court warrant and pass along evidence from the calls
B)	enabling it to eavesdrop on telephone calls without a court warrant and pass along evidence from the calls on which it eavesdropped
C)	enabling it to eavesdrop on telephone calls without a court warrant and pass along evidence from those calls
D)	enabling them to eavesdrop on telephone calls without a court warrant and be passing along evidence from those calls
E)	enabling it to eavesdrop on telephone calls without a court warrant and be passing along evidence from those calls

Correct Answer: C

There are three problems with the sentence:

(1) The pronoun them (which is a plural pronoun) improperly refers back to the National Security Agency (which is a singular noun). As the sentence is currently constructed, one could construe the meaning as United States Congressmen were allowed to eavesdrop when the intention is that the Congressmen authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop.

(2) It is imperative that the two powers that the Congressmen granted the National Security Agency appear in parallel: to eavesdrop ... and [to] pass along.

(3) evidence from the calls is somewhat imprecise and can be improved by saying evidence from those calls, which more explicitly refers back to the calls on which the National Security Agency eavesdropped.

The pronoun them (which is a plural pronoun) improperly refers back to the National Security Agency (which is a singular noun)
The phrase the calls on which it eavesdropped is precise, but it is too wordy and could be replaced by those calls
The singular pronoun it properly refers back to the singular noun National Security Agency; those calls is concise; to eavesdrop and [to] pass along are parallel
The pronoun them (which is a plural pronoun) improperly refers back to the National Security Agency (which is a singular noun); the two powers that the Congressmen granted the National Security Agency are not parallel (i.e., to eavesdrop ... and passing along); to be is wordy and unnecessary
The two powers that the Congressmen granted the National Security Agency are not parallel (i.e., to eavesdrop ... and passing along); to be is wordy and unnecessary

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