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    Question

    In the following questions, sentences are given with a

    part in bold. The given phrase in bold may or may not contain an error. If phrase has error, one of the options following can replace the incorrect phrase. The correct phrase which replaces the erroneous phrase will be your answer. If the sentence is correct then select ‘No improvement required’ as your answer. The board of directors, concerned about the recent decline in revenue, agreed on a new strategic plan that focuses on reducing operational costs and to expand into new markets.
    A to focus on reducing operational costs and to expand into new markets. Correct Answer Incorrect Answer
    B focused on reducing operational costs and expanding into new markets. Correct Answer Incorrect Answer
    C that will focus on reducing operational costs and expanding into new markets. Correct Answer Incorrect Answer
    D that focuses on reducing operational costs and expanding into new markets. Correct Answer Incorrect Answer
    E No improvement is required. Correct Answer Incorrect Answer

    Solution

    (a) to focus on reducing operational costs and to expand into new markets. Incorrect. It creates a parallelism error by mixing "to focus" and "to expand" with "reducing." Also, the "to focus on" part of the phrase changes the meaning and is less idiomatic in this context. (b) focused on reducing operational costs and expanding into new markets. Incorrect. "focused" is in the past tense, which doesn't align with the present tense "strategic plan that focuses." (c) that will focus on reducing operational costs and expanding into new markets. Incorrect. The use of "will focus" shifts the tense from present ("focuses") to future, creating inconsistency with the rest of the sentence. (d) that focuses on reducing operational costs and expanding into new markets. Correct. This option maintains the correct present tense and fixes the parallelism error by using two gerunds ("reducing" and "expanding") after "focuses on," creating a grammatically sound and parallel structure. (e) No improvement is required. Incorrect. The original sentence has a parallelism error by mixing a gerund ("reducing") with an infinitive ("to expand").

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