Charles Lindbergh, for his attempt at a solo transatlantic flight, was

Hi All,

Charles Lindbergh, for his attempt at a solo transatlantic flight, was very reluctant to have any extra weight on his plane, he therefore refused to carry even a pound of mail, despite being offered $1,000 to do so.



1. The function prepositional phrase “for his attempt at a solo transatlantic flight” is obscure. It is not clear what is it modifying. It is not placed correctly.
2. Only comma has been used to join two independent clauses. This structure is completely ungrammatical.

POE:

Choice A: Charles Lindbergh, for his attempt at a solo transatlantic flight, was very reluctant to have any extra weight on his plane, he therefore: Incorrect for the reasons discussed above.

Choice B: When Charles Lindbergh was attempting his solo transatlantic flight, being very reluctant to have any extra weight on his plane, he: Incorrect. The syntax of this answer choice is not correct the clauses have not been placed at proper places to convey the meaning clearly.

Choice C: Since he was very reluctant to carry any extra weight on his plane when he was attempting his solo transatlantic flight, so Charles Lindbergh: Incorrect. There is no independent clause in the sentence with this choice. Use of “so” is incorrect here.

Choice D: Being very reluctant to carry any extra weight on his plane when he attempted his solo transatlantic flight was the reason that Charles Lindbergh: Incorrect. This structure is ungrammatical. If there were a comma instead of “was the reason that”, then the construction would be correct.

Choice E: Very reluctant to have any extra weight on his plane when he attempted his solo transatlantic flight, Charles Lindbergh: Correct. “very reluctant” correctly modifies the subject of the Independent clause Charles Lindbergh. Pronoun “he” and “his” also correctly refer to the same subject.

Hope this helps.
Thanks.
Shraddha
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Rule 1 - being in an answer option is almost always wrong. eliminate the options until you find a better alternative. options B and D can be ruled out.
Rule 2 - Being itself is indicative of the reason, so "was the reason" is redundant. option D can be ruled out completely.
Rule 3 - Same as above reason with "Since, so" combo. option C is ruled out.

Only two remain are A and E. Following Manhattan SC Pronoun referencing error type rules, E is better option.
Examples-
Wrong: While coming out of the dept store, John's wallet was stolen. (Gives the idea that John's wallet was coming out of the dept store!!)
Correct: While he was coming out of the dept store, John's wallet was stolen. (When subject of the sentence is moved in to the latter part of the phrasing, the initial part necessarily needs a referencing pronoun!!!). E is concise, clear, expressive and short in delivering the idea correctly. A is a good sentence, delivers the idea well and there is no grammatical mistake actually, but E is effective in expressing the same idea. So E scores.

Remember, SC in GMAT is all about optimum style of expression.

It is a wrong impression that "being" is always incorrect in GMAT. Yes "being" may add some extra baggage in the sentence and hence may push it to become wordy. But it does not imply that we should outright reject a choice that uses "being".

Check out question 101 in OG12. Correct answer has the structure:
Being heavily committed to a course of action...is likely to make an executive miss signs of trouble...
Here "being" is integral to the meaning of the sentence. It is the action of "being heavily committed..." that makes it likely for the executive to miss the signs...

Likewise, in the GMATprep question in discussion, choice D is not incorrect just because "being" is used. It is incorrect because it is unnecessarily wordy.

Wordy - Choice D - Being very reluctant to carry any extra weight on his plane when he attempted his solo transatlantic flight was the reason that Charles Lindbergh refused to carry even a pound of mail, despite being offered $1,000 to do so.
Precise - Choice E - Very reluctant to have any extra weight on his plane when he attempted his solo transatlantic flight, Charles Lindberghrefused to carry even a pound of mail, despite being offered $1,000 to do so

Lets see a simple example to illustrate the difference between D and E of the GMATPrep question:
Like D = Being very tired after a sleepless night was the reason Tim took the day off. - wordy and hence incorrect
Like E = Very tired after a sleepless night, Tim took the day off. - Precise and correct

As you can see E is precise and hence correct. But D is not grammatically incorrect. It is more wordy.

Now check out this sentence. It is like the correct choice in OG12#101.

Being fat was the reason Mary lacked confidence in her teenage years.
I actually cannot write an alternate version here just by deleting "being" and a few other words. The sentence with "being" is actually correct.. Here as with correct choice in OG12#101, "being" is required to communicate the meaning of the sentence.

So "being" is correct. It just depends on the context. Sometimes its essential to the meaning and sometimes it just adds more weight to the sentence and hence makes the sentence wordy.

Hope this helps.

Payal
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This one is a run-on sentence, which boils down to: "Lindbergh was reluctant, he therefore refused..." We would need a conjunction ("and" or "but" or something like that) after the comma to link the two independent clauses.


This one makes it sound as though Lindbergh refused to carry the mail WHEN he was attempting the flight. Did someone text Lindbergh during the flight and ask him to make a delivery? Also, it's unclear whether the "being" part modifies the phrase before it or the phrase after it.

We could argue that there are no DEFINITE errors here, but the meaning isn't very clear at all, and we can probably do better...


"Since he was reluctant, so he refused..." The "since" and the "so" are redundant here.

And again, was he reluctant only WHEN he was actually flying the plane? In other words, does the "when" part tell us exactly when he was reluctant? Or exactly when he didn't want to carry the extra weight? It's not entirely clear.

Again, we might be able to argue that these aren't absolute errors. But they definitely aren't great. You could keep (C) if you wanted to, but we'll see a better option in a moment.

Let's look at these last two side-by-side:


(D) and (E) aren't very different. But why say, "Being reluctant to carry extra weight was the reason that Lindbergh..." when we can just say, "Reluctant to have extra weight, Lindbergh..."? The modifier is clearer and more direct in (E).

Also, "have extra weight" is a bit better than "carry extra weight." "Carry" makes it sound like Lindbergh would be holding the mail in his arms the whole time, as opposed to just having the extra weight on his plane.

Not too many glaring issues here, but (E) is the clearest and best of the five options.
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My goodness!!! What's wrong with A.
Can someone please explain without just referring it not to be sweet etc?

IMO: In A, 'for his attempt at a solo transatlantic flight' is incorrect modifier. It is not descriptive information(non-restrictive).


Charles Lindbergh[strike], for his attempt at a solo transatlantic flight,[/strike] was very reluctant to have any extra weight on his plane, he therefore refused to carry even a pound of mail, despite being offered $1,000 to do so.

It is essential information as it specifies the special case when Charles was reluctant. A implies that Charles was always reluctant, the case which is not true.

Choice A in full flow

on his plane, he therefore


A has a style error; note two independent sentences being conjugated by a comma making it a run-on
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To clarify egmat's response:

In the bolded sentence in the op, the word 'being' is the subject of the sentence. "Being heavily committed...is likely to." This is appropriate, since we are in fact discussing the state of being heavily commited and don't have any way to shorten this construction.

However, the sentence in the question posted is discussing Charles Lindberg. Saying that "Being reluctant...was the reason" makes Lindberg's reluctance the subject of the sentence, rather than Lindberg himself. In addition to being wordy, this construction actively detracts from the meaning of the sentence by shifting the focus of discussion to a tangential subject.

Hope this helps!

This explanation is misleading and grammatically wrong.

In both sentences, "Being" is the beginning of the subject--but not all of it.

Being heavily committed to a course of action, especially one that has worked well in the past, is likely to make an executive miss signs of incipient trouble or misinterpret them when they do appear.

Here the subject is "Being heavily committed to a course of action."

Being very reluctant to carry any extra weight on his plane when he attempted his solo transatlantic flight was the reason ...

Here the subject is NOT "Lindbergh's reluctance" (whatever that would mean) but rather "Being very reluctant to carry any extra weight on his plane when he attempted his solo transatlantic flight"

The problem is simple: the subject contains too much material and is therefore unwieldy. In particular, "when he attempted his solo transatlantic flight" should be removed from the subject and given its own independent position in the sentence.

Hi GrammarRules,

I'm going to have to disagree with you here! "Lindberg's reluctance" is not grammatically equivalent to "Being very reluctant....etc.", you're right, but it's LOGICALLY equivalent. And neither version is concise or desirable--talking about Lindberg's reluctance or Lindberg's being reluctant is a clunky distraction from what SHOULD be a discussion about Lindberg himself! (though I'll admit, "tangential subject" was probably not the best choice of words here)

being as a subject of clause is not prefered on gmat though it is not incorrect. this is ilustrated by the following in gmatprep. in this question, being as subject is acceptable.

Being heavily committed to a course of action, especially one that has worked well in the past, is likely to make an executive miss signs of incipient trouble or misinterpret them when they do appear.

a similar phenomenon is that "considered as" is considered wrong on many og questions but appears in all 5 choices in a gmatprep question. this means "considered as" is not prefered though is not incorrect.

another similar phenomenon is that

verbaless clause should be close to the subject. the question 17 og 13 ilustrate this point. but in many other questions, verbaless clause can stand far the subject.

what I want to say is PREFERENCE of gmat.

mostly gmat test un on meaning problem. But gmat also test un on preference which is ilustrated by the above sentences.

pls comment on my thinking. is it wrong?

Hi thangvietnam,

I agreee that study of official questions do show up some preferences of certain usages. However, as they say and as we see in official questions also that every rule has an exception. Hence, it would not be very adivasable to learn all the rules alongwith all the exceptions.

What we must do is that be sure of our subject-matter knowledge, do the needful to understand the intended meaning and the context of thw sentence and apply the grammatical rules or the subject matter knowledge to solve the SC problems.

Thanks.
Shraddha
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Hi Shraddha,
I'm not able to understand clearly why B is incorrect here and E is correct ? Could you please come up with a bit detail analysis of this question by digging deep further ?

Much appreciate your feedback.

P.S : I guess,E doesn't have a sense of the fact that Charles Lindbergh was very reluctant to have any extra weight on his plane hence refused to carry even a pound of mail....

Hi Debayan,

Choice B: When Charles Lindbergh was attempting his solo transatlantic flight, being very reluctant to have any extra weight on his plane, he
The problem with this choice is that the modifier "being very reluctant..." is placed between two commas. Such placement makes it undlear whether this modifier modifies the preceding noun or the following noun. Here is the scope of ambiguity in modification.

Choice E: Very reluctant to have any extra weight on his plane when he attempted his solo transatlantic flight, Charles Lindbergh
Here, the modification is absolutely clear. Who is very reluctant? The subject of the following clause Chales Lindbergh. There is no acope of any ambiguity whatsoever in this choice. Hence, this choice is precise and conveys the logical menaing absolutely clearly.

Hope this helps.
Thanks.
Shraddha
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There are two key things one should understand to answer this questions:

1) The modifier "reluctant to carry even a pound of extra weight" is a necessary modifier, meaning this is essential part of the sentence but not there to provide extra information.

2) The modifier "despite being offered $1000 to do so" should modify Charles not anything else.

Coming to the choices:

Original sentence is wrong. Need not discuss why.

Choice B is wrong because it changes the intended meaning of the sentence by violating 1 above. By placing the modifier 1 (above) after a comma, the choice wrongly implies that there is no correlation between "going on a solo transatlantic flight" and "being reluctant to carry extra weight" which is wrong as it changes the intended meaning.

Choice C has redundancy error Since.....so is a wrong construction.

Choice D is wrong because it violates 2 above. "Being very reluctant....was the reason....., despite being offered $1000 to do so". "Being very reluctant to carry" cannot be offered $1000.

Choice E takes care of both 1 and 2 highlighted above. Right

According to e-GMAT's SC course, the correct answer has to convey the intended meaning of the original sentence. Here, the original sentence indicates that "being very relectant to...." is the reason why Charles Lindbergh refused to carry... But in choice E, we do not see this relation. In choice E, the "reluctant" thing only becomes a modifier to Charles Lindbergh, and there is no reason for the "refused" thing.
I think choice D, though wordy, is the correct answer.
Please correct me!

Hi tronghieu1987,

Thanks for posting your doubt here.

The context of the sentence is such hat it makes it absolutely clear that Charles Lindbergh refused to carry even a pound of mail because he was reluctant to have any extra weight on his plane. Even though this sentence does not use any "reason" word., the context makes it absolutely clear.

Also, this is an officially correct answer that is always correct. We should not doubt them. rather we should learn new usages from them.

Hope this helps.
Thanks.
SJ
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Correct Usage of "being":
Basically, "being" is ok when there are no acceptable alternative formulations that DON'T use it.

To be more precise, "being" can be ok as long as at least one of the following 2 conditions obtains:

(1) it is part of a PASSIVE-VOICE construction (note that such constructions require a form of "to be", so, if the passive voice is in the -ing form, that form will manifest as "being");
or
(2) it is used as a ING noun (i.e., the action of "being something" is treated as a NOUN in the sentence).
most, but not all, of these nouns form of a construction in the passive voice, as discussed in #1 above.
examples:
During the 1950s, as part of their therapy, young polio victims learning to live with their disabilities were helped to practice falling, so that they could learn to fall without being hurt.(source: gmat prep)
(again, passive voice ING noun)

According to one expert, the cause of genetic irregularities in many breeds of dog is not so much that dogs are being bred for looks or to meet other narrow criteria as that the breeds have relatively few founding members. (source: gmat prep)
(passive; not ING noun)

Being heavily committed to a course of action, especially one that has worked well in the past, is likely to make an executive miss signs of incipient trouble or misinterpret them when they do appear. (source: gmat prep; also in the OG verbal supplement)
(ING noun; not passive)

Hope this helps!
Rajan

A. Charles Lindbergh, for his attempt at a solo transatlantic flight, was very reluctant to have any extra weight on his plane, he therefore refused to carry even a pound of mail, despite being offered $1,000 to do so.

Remove the non essential modifier and you will see that Choice A is a blatant comma splice.
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