it is possible that earthquake may

[shalinibhatia15]

chapter 2 of manhattan sentence correction guide exercises at the end .

it is possible that the earthquake may have been casual to the building's collapse.

manhattan strategy guide says that the correct version of this sentence is

The earthquake may have caused the building's collapse.
I agree.

My question is whether " possibly , the earthquake collapsed the building "will be correct .
because thiis sentence also has uncertainity factor.

thanks

[oalimov]

You should still use Present Perfect because the result of the earthquake is still present. So the answer should sound like this:
"Possibly, the earthquake have caused the building's collapse."
or
"The earthquake may have caused the building's collapse."

In my opinion "X may have caused" is more direct and concise than "possibly, X have caused".

(edited by moderator J. Nelson for typo)

[jnelson0612]

You should still use Present Perfect because the result of the earthquake is still present. So the answer should sound like this:
"Possibly, the earthquake have caused the building's collapse."
or
"The earthquake may have caused the building's collapse."

In my opinion "X may have caused" is more direct and concise than "possibly, X have caused".

Hi oalimov, don't forget the "may" in the first sentence. Your current sentence does not have subject/verb agreement.

[vyomchaudhary]

One more doubt regarding this question:
As per the book the correct sentence is "the earthquake may have caused to the building's collapse."
Can we use 'to' with 'caused' in this way?isn't this wrong?
thanks

[tim]

OFFICIALLY CORRECT ANSWERS ARE CORRECT!
do not question officially correct answers!
far too many students on this forum make the mistake of questioning the correct answers; please note that doing so is a complete waste of your time and effort. i.e., exactly 0% of the time that you spend posting "isn't this official answer wrong?" is productive, and exactly 100% of that time is wasted.

"is this correct?" is never a productive question to ask about one of GMAC's correct answers. the answer is always yes.
"is this wrong?" / "is this X type of error?" is never a productive question to ask about one of GMAC's correct answers. the answer is always no.

instead, the questions you should be asking about correct official answers, if you don't understand them, are:
"why is this correct?"
"how does this work?"
"what understanding am i lacking that i need to understand this choice?"

this is a small, but hugely significant, change to your way of thinking.
you will suddenly find it much easier to understand the format, style, and conventions of the official problems if you retire the idea that they might be wrong.

[PARULB924]

Could you explain the usage of 'caused to' ?

I do not understand its usage in the following sentence :

The earthquake may have caused to the building's collapse.

Thank you

[jnelson0612]

Could you explain the usage of 'caused to' ?

I do not understand its usage in the following sentence :

The earthquake may have caused to the building's collapse.

Thank you

The correct sentence is "The earthquake may have caused the building's collapse". "caused to" is completely wrong in this sentence. It appears that another student just added in the "to" in one of the posts above. Please know that this is not correct.

[AZ679]

Could you explain the usage of 'caused to' ?

I do not understand its usage in the following sentence :

The earthquake may have caused to the building's collapse.

Thank you

The correct sentence is "The earthquake may have caused the building's collapse". "caused to" is completely wrong in this sentence. It appears that another student just added in the "to" in one of the posts above. Please know that this is not correct.

In the Manhattan SC strategy book, 5 Edition, that I have on page 31, it is written:

"It is possible that the earthquake may have caused to the building's collapse.
the earthquake may"

So that 'to' must be a typo in the book (?).

[RonPurewal]

yep. that's a mistake. should be just "caused".

or you could change it to "contributed to...".

the latter of these ("contributed to...") makes more sense in context, because the sentence expresses uncertainty.
• we could quite reasonably be uncertain about whether an earthquake contributed [among other factors] to the collapse of a building.
• on the other hand, it's going to be obvious whether an earthquake caused the collapse of a building. (was it standing before the quake but not after? if so, then yes.)