After the 1973 drought's 70% total cattle loss, living conditions improved for the inhabitants of the Sahel, but these people continue to suffer from the devastating effects of malnutrition.

1. SAME

2. Even though Sahel inhabitants' living conditions, which improved over the 1973 drought's 70% total loss of cattle,

3. Although living conditions for the inhabitants of the Sahel improved after the end of the 1973 drought, during which the estimated proportion of the cattle lost was 70%,

4. While there was an improvement in living conditions for the inhabitants of the Sahel after the 70% total cattle loss of the 1973 drought, still

5. Despite Sahel inhabitants' living conditions iprovement from 1973 drought's 70% total cattle loss,

please post the source of this problem; if you do not, we'll have to delete it within a few days.

thanks.

hI rON,
the source is from one of the free papaer tests conductd for CAT-the indian MBA entrance test. Thanks in advance.

wow, all of those are pretty badly written, but i think choice c is the least bad (which would make it the 'correct' answer to this problem).

discussion:

choices a & b
- you can't say 'the drought's loss of cattle', because the drought didn't lose cattle.

choice b
- faulty comparison: living conditions can't improve over a loss of cattle. the only valid comparison (as introduced by 'improved upon') is that between these living conditions (post-1973) and some other living conditions; you have to compare things that are fundamentally similar.

choice c (correct)
- no grammatical comparison is made, so there's no need for parallelism as there is in choice b. this sentence merely says that the conditions improved (not 'over' some other conditions), so no parallelism is required.
- idiomatic usage is proper
- the thing i don't like here is 'the estimated proportion of the cattle lost was 70%, which is both wordy and somewhat opaque. this could be much better written as something like 'during which they lost approximately 70% of their cattle' ... but remember, you're picking the best choice, not the perfect one.

choice d
- 'there was an improvement in living conditions' is wordy (compare to 'living conditions improved')
- i'm not sure whether 'for' is properly idiomatic; i don't like it, but, especially because this question apparently comes from a foreign test, i won't say it's wrong.
- '70% cattle loss of the 1973 drought' is ... strange

choice e
- not grammatical: 'living conditions improvement'
- there should be 'the' before '1973'
- technically, 'these people' violates the possessive poison rule. i wouldn't rely on that rule, though, as it's highly controversial and might not even apply on this test.