That educators have not anticipated the impact of microcomputer technology can hardly be said that it is their fault : Alvin Toffler, one of the most prominent students of the future, did not even mention microcomputers in Future Shock, published in 1970


(A) That educators have not anticipated the impact of microcomputer technology can hardly be said that it is their fault to lower the underground water level and to dig trenches
(B)That educators have not anticipated the impact of microcomputer technology can hardly be said to be at fault
(C)It can hardly be said that it is the fault of educators who have not anticipated the impact of microcomputer technology
(D)It can hardly be said that educators are at fault for not anticipating the impact of microcomputer technology
(E)The fact that educators are at fault for not anticipating the impact of microcomputer technology can hardly be said.

This one is confusing to me. The It at the beginning of the sentence threw me off
OG is D

Yeah, this is a weird one. It's not unusual for the test to write something in a fairly esoteric, academic, or old-fashioned way, just to throw us off. It doesn't "sound" good even though it is grammatically correct. Watch out for that on the test.

The original sentence has an idiom problem: it should say "can hardly be said to be their fault."

B should say "their" fault, not "at" fault.

C messes up the meaning. The second "it" should be referring to something that is the fault of educators, but I'm not quite sure what "it" is.

E also messes up the meaning - we're not trying to say that it is a "fact" that the educators are at fault - we're trying to say the opposite in fact - that we can't say they're at fault.

The real approach here is just to realize that they are actual grammatical or meaning errors in the other four. D might not sound great, but it doesn't actually contain an error and the meaning is clear.

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Stacey Koprince
Instructor
Director of Online Community
ManhattanGMAT