admit/admit to

[sunilbhat]

When admit means acknowledging should we use admit or admit to. Please check the following explation of [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip] Q 31 for the issue.

 

31. Unlike computer skills or other technical skills, there is a disinclination on the part of many people to

 

recognize the degree to which their analytical skills are weak.

 

(A) Unlike computer skills or other technical skills, there is a disinclination on the part of many people to

 

recognize the degree to which their analytical skills are weak.

 

(B) Unlike computer skills or other technical skills, which they admit they lack, many people are disinclined

 

to recognize that their analytical skills are weak.

 

© Unlike computer skills or other technical skills, analytical skills bring out a disinclination in many people

 

to recognize that they are weak to a degree.

 

(D) Many people, willing to admit that they lack computer skills or other technical skills, are disinclined to

 

recognize that their analytical skills are weak.

 

(E) Many people have a disinclination to recognize the weakness of their analytical skills while willing to

 

admit their lack of computer skills or other technical skills.

 

 

Answer- D

 

Choice D is best. Choice A illogically compares skills to a disinclination; choice B compares skills to many

 

people. Choice C makes the comparison logical by casting analytical skills as the subject of the sentence, but

 

it is awkward and unidiomatic to say skills bring out a disinclination. Also in C, the referent of they is unclear,

 

and weak to a degree changes the meaning of the original statement. In E, have a disinclination... while

 

willing is grammatically incomplete, and admit their lack should be admit to their lack. By making people the

 

subject of the sentence, D best expresses the intended contrast, which pertains not so much to skills as to

 

people's willingness to recognize different areas of weakness.