Question

Interchange the following sentence with a positive, comparative and superlative degree of comparison.

When chronological order is followed too mechanically, they are obscuring rather than clarifying important relationships.
A) When chronological order is followed too mechanically, they are obscuring rather than clarifying important relationships.
B) When chronological order is followed too mechanically, it obscures rather than clarifying important relationships.
C) Chronological order, if too mechanically followed, obscures rather than it clarifies important relationships.
D)Chronological order, if followed too mechanically, obscures rather than clarifies important relationships.
E)If you follow a too mechanical chronological order, it obscures rather than clarifies important relationships.

Answer 1

Hint:Degree of comparison – most adjectives have three different forms to show degree of comparison and i.e. the positive, the comparative and the superlative.

Complete answer:
Degree of comparison is a form of an adjective that indicates a different degree of the attribute the adjective denotes. The degree of comparison of good is a positive degree of comparison, when there is a comparison between two or more objects and objects are called comparative degrees of comparison and the superlative degree of comparison is used to compare three or more nouns. They are used to compare the things against each other.

>Option A) When chronological order is followed too mechanically, they are obscuring rather than clarifying important relationships – is an incorrect answer A has no change. Thus, this is an incorrect answer.
>Option B) When chronological order is followed too mechanically, it obscures rather than clarifying important relationships – is an incorrect answer this option is grammatically wrong. Thus, this is an incorrect answer.
>Option C) Chronological order, if too mechanically followed, obscures rather than clarifies important relationships – Is an incorrect answer because this answer is grammatically wrong and this will not be considered as the correct answer. Thus, this is an incorrect answer.
>Option D) Chronological order, if followed too mechanically, obscures rather than clarifies important relationships – is the correct answer because if we interchange the following sentence with a positive, comparative and superlative degree of comparison the meaning is still the same. Thus, this is the correct answer.
>Option E) If you follow a too mechanical chronological order, it obscures rather than clarifies important relationships – is an incorrect answer because this sentence is grammatically wrong. Thus, we will consider this as the correct answer. Thus, this is an incorrect answer.
Chronological order, if followed too mechanically, obscures rather than clarifies important relationships.

Hence the correct answer is option C.

Note:In such questions it is very important to understand the degree of comparisons. It is possible to change the degrees of comparison without changing the meaning of the sentence. The given sentence is in comparative degree. Thus, the option D is the best option as in this option the meaning is not changing. For example: we have to change the degree of comparison without changing its meaning.
1: Malacca is the oldest town in Malaysia:
No other town in Malaysia is as old as Malacca (we have changed this sentence into a positive degree of comparison but the meaning of the sentence after conversion still remains the same).
And we change this particular sentence to a comparative degree of comparison then the sentence will look like: Malacca is older than any other town in Malaysia.
2: Very few animals are as useful as the cow:
The cow is more useful than most other animals. (The above sentence is converted into comparative degree of comparison and the meaning is still the same)
The cow is one of the most useful animals. (And further the same sentence can be converted into a superlative degree of comparison with the exact meaning stated in the sentence when we haven’t converted into any form of degree of comparison).