daagh wrote:
Although low in per capita income, India is among the ten most industrialized nations, among the only seven countries that have launched their own Earth satellites, and among the three countries that have the largest pools of technically trained persons.
First Grammar:
a) among the only seven countries that have launched their own Earth satellites, and among – looks ok.
b) the only seven countries to have launched their own Earth satellites, and : This has faulty parallelism. To have launched - an infinitive - and -that have the largest pool - a clause is not proper //
c) among the only seven countries to have launched their own Earth satellites, and : Using among for two factors and leaving it for the third is no good parallelism.
d) the seven countries that are the only ones that launched their own Earth satellites, and : launched, a past tense clause - and - -that have the largest pools- a clause with present perfect is not good parallelism.
e) the seven countries that have been the only ones to launch their own Earth satellites, and : that have been the only ones- a present perfect (meaning that they are not any more the only ones) and that have the largest pools- a present tense - is no good parallelism.
BY POE only A survives grammar norms.
Now Meaning: The question wants to list three factors in favor of India. All the three are independent of each other. The two later ones are not the modifiers of the first namely the 10 industrial nations.
For example, if you want to define industrial nations as those that have launched their own satellites and those that have the largest pools, then the numbers of seven and three are irrelevant then. If there are among the 10 industrialized nations, only three have largest pools, what happened to the other seven? Can we conclude that the other seven cannot be defined as industrialized? The paradox of this factor is that three of the Group of Eight countries, the highly industrialized countries of the world, namely Germany, Italy, and Canada have still not launched their own satellites, while Iran, not anywhere near a highly industrialized status, has its own satellite.
Therefore being industrialized and launching their own satellite and having the largest pools are not a package but are totally independent. This is the core of the question at hand and hence A, though wordy a bit, makes things clear.
Very nice question and kudo to the poster.
Hey the answer has been given as E. Can you please justify that?