How do I think of a way to answer this?

Marley Simmons, in problems like these, first break down the sentence into its Subject - Verb - Object. Every complete English sentence has at least a Subject and a Verb.

In a passive voice sentence like this one (you know because the verb is in " -- ed" format and the preposition "by"), the subject is the recipient of the action verb. So the Subject is "the other causes of crime" and the Verb is "have been overlooked". Now, we examine the modifier, which is "By focusing on poverty". It is misplaced because the subject is an abstract noun, i.e., "the other causes of crime" cannot be "focusing on poverty".

Hence, you have to ensure that the action taker is human being, i.e., "sociologists". The only choice that does that is (E), because the sentence is now in active voice, in which the Subject is "sociologists", who can be "focusing on poverty" and who could "have overlooked" the other causes of crime. The other choices make the same mistake as the original sentence.

This is a very typical question in this section of the test, so make sure you practice all the questions in this set. Tap the Solution button first if you get lost or stuck.

I think (without looking at the solutions) the answer is (E).

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