On the Great Plains, nineteenth-century settlers used
mud and grass to build their homes, doing it without
timber and nails.

(A) settlers used mud and grass to build their homes,
doing it without
(B) settlers used mud and grass to build their
homes, did it without
(C) settlers used mud and grass to build their homes,
making them while not having
(D) settlers used mud and grass to build their homes,
making do without
(E) settlers’ homes were built of mud and grass,
making do without

Use of them/their/it is ambiguous in a,b and c.Left with d and e.Would like to go with d as the original sentence says settlers used,so it should be D.Just an element of doubt whether the usage of MAKING DO is correct?

Making do is totally incorrect.
"A" sounds much better but use of "it" is a problem

Good one!

The sentence has modifier issue:
“doing it without” and “did it without “ modifies the settlers; Since the modifying phrase not next to the Noun – eliminate it

E – “making” modifies grass – eliminate it

Between C and D – Making them correctly modifies “homes”

So C wins!

this should be (d).

first off, "make do" is an idiomatic expression meaning, roughly, "get the job done" or "accomplish some planned goal". so that's fine, the above guest poster's assertion to the contrary notwithstanding.

(a) and (b) are gone because "it" doesn't have an antecedent.
(e) is gone because "settlers' homes" is the subject, creating the absurd meaning that the homes themselves "made do" -- i.e., that the homes built themselves.

(d) is better than (c) for the following reasons:
* "making them" would be wholly redundant, because we just got done saying "to build their homes". if this were the intended meaning, we'd just write "...used mud and grass to build their homes, without timber and nails". on the other hand, "making do" (which, as noted above, is an acceptable idiom) is acceptable as a modifier because it doesn't restate anything from the main clause.
* "while not having" is way, way inferior to "without". in fact, if you've seen enough official problems, you'll eliminate wordy constructions like this on sight; they're common, and they're basically never correct (especially when they're alongside much more compact constructions, such as "without", in the answer choices).

hi Ron,
If A had doing "so", in place of doing "it", would A been preferable to D?

What does the idiom "making do" mean?

look up 2 posts.