Student’s GMAT Prep Question for Sentence Correction

Here’s a question that was directed to me from a student:

Quote:
As envisioned by researchers, commercial farming of lobsters will enable fisheries to sell the shellfish year-round, taking advantage of off-season demand, standardize its sizes and colors, and to predict sales volume in advance.

(A) taking advantage of off-season demand, standardize
(B) taking advantage of off-season demand, to standardize
(C) taking advantage of off-season demand, standardizing
(D) take advantage of off-season demand, standardizing
(E) take advantage of off-season demand, to standardize

Step 1) Notice keyword “and” in the format: a, b, and c.
Since the last term c is not underlined, this will dictate what the other guys have to be.
“to predict sales” is what we have to follow.

Step 2) Identify a and b.
a: “to sell”
b: “to standardize”

Step 3) Only choices (B) and (E) have “to standardize”

Step 4) Note that the -ING phrase “taking advantage of off-season demand” is just a descriptive phrase describing the first part of the sentence. Also, the phrase in (E) “take advantage of” does not fit the “to take advantage of” pattern so it cannot be correct.

Step 5) Mark (B) and move on.

You should be able to arrive at the correct answer pretty quickly if you have the correct and efficient thought process.

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