In 1791 Robert Carter III, one of the wealthiest plantation owners in

ETS used to make GMAT questions. Now GMAT questions are made by ACT. I actually asked some senior people at the GMAC, and they said that they stand by all GMAT questions (even the ETS questions). But in some cases we can clearly see explanations in the OG changing. I don't think that's a bad thing. Language evolves, and so too must GMAT questions.

Interesting. What is ACT?

I tried searching on Google and could not find any reference.

Hello Sir, in terms of GMAT, what exactly would be considered a reliable evidence?

In 1791 Robert Carter III, one of the wealthiest plantation owners in Virginia, stunned his family, friends, and neighbors by filing a deed of emancipa¬tion, setting free the more than 500 slaves who were legally considered his property.
(A) setting free the more than 500 slaves who were legally considered
(B) setting free more than the 500 slaves legally considered as
(C) and set free more than 500 slaves, who were legally considered as
(D) and set free more than the 500 slaves who were legally considered
(E) and he set free the more than 500 slaves who were legally considered as


'Considered as' is unidiomatic, so we eliminate B,C and E.

In D the usage of article 'The' before the slaves means that he had more than 500 slaves and only 500 were leagally his property while the rest were illeagal.,it is change in meaning so elimiate D

A is the correct choice.

Hi AjiteshArun, Utkarsh from Jamboree Classes. I have a doubt, Is it correct to use 'the' before 'more than' as used in option A?

Hi Utkarsh, yes it is. Look at it this way:

The people
The 110 people (just specifying the number)
The (>100) people (maybe we don't know the exact number, or that level of precision is unnecessary)
The (more than hundred) people (putting it in words)
The more than hundred people

Here is a similar sentence from a recent NYT article:

please help with this question. what is "comma setting" modifying - i understand that Robert stunned his family by filling deed and as result set free slaves. The "comma setting" verb-ing modifier modifies the preceding clause ie Robert Stunned. Which now means that Robert stunned his family by doing two things 1) filling deed 2) setting free slaves. i thing it cannot by filling deed. please help egmat GMATNinja sayantanc2k abhimahna VeritasKarishma

'setting free ... ' is a present participle appearing at the end of the sentence separated by a comma. It is modifying the entire preceding sentence and is showing the impact of the preceding sentence.

He stunned his family by filing the deed - the result of this action was setting free the slaves.

Check out how participles are used: https://www.gmatclub.com/forum/veritas-prep-resource-links-no-longer-available-399979.html#/2014/1 ... -the-gmat/

I narrowed down to option A and B because of verb'ing modifier. I missed wrong usage of "the" but eliminated A because it was not using "as " . Since "as" is used to depict role or function. here slaves have been considered as his property, depicting role/function of slaves. therefore "as" is needed in the sentence.can anyone tell where i went wrong?

Hello, hridaybector. For GMAT™ purposes, it is better to think of considered as as unidiomatic, losing out to considered in this sort of context. If you know to look for the offending as, then you can make quick work of (B). You might find this old Manhattan Prep thread useful, in which a few instructors chime in on the topic. To be clear, I am not saying that considered as is always incorrect in English, but when it comes to GMAT™ SC questions, I have always seen the stripped-down version win out instead.

Happy reading.

- Andrew

AjiteshArun

I have gone through your explanation w.r.t 'significance of 'the'.
Please find below whether my understanding of option A&B is correct for usage of 'the'

Option A: setting free the more than 500 slaves- means there were more than 500 slaves who were legally considered his property.He set free some SPECIFIC number which is more than 500 but did not mention precise(how many).

Option B : setting free more than the 500 slaves legally considered as- means he set free more than 500 slaves ( all 500 those who were considered legal his property PLUS those slaves who might not be considered his slaves.

I am doubtful about the understanding of option B.

Thanks

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Hi gmatassassin88,

That is correct. Let's start by leaving the number out:
1. the slaves who were legally considered his property ← All the slaves who were legally considered his property

Now, let's put a number in:
2. the 500 slaves who were legally considered his property ← All the slaves who were considered his property, and it specifies the exact number (500)

Okay, but what if the exact number is not known?
3. the (more than 500) slaves who were legally considered his property ← Again, all the slaves who were legally considered his property, and it includes the number, but with reduced precision ("> 500" instead of "500")

This is usually done when the precise number is not known, unnecessary, or awkward when used in the sentence. Consider the following sentences:
4. The one billion three hundred eighty million four hundred eighteen thousand nine hundred eighty-nine people of India will soon need to apply for an Aadhaar card.
5. The more than one billion people of India will soon need to apply for an Aadhaar card.

Even if we somehow managed to get the number in (4) right, it would have changed by the time we finished writing the sentence.

AjiteshArun

Thanks for your explanation for option A ' The more than..', explanation matches to my above reasoning I believe.

However my doubts pertains to the mention phrase.(option B)

'more than the 500 slaves who considered legal property's Please share your explanation on this one.

i have shared my reasoning in the earlier post.Please share your's.

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Your analysis is correct. We can read that portion of the sentence as:

more than (the 500 slaves who were legally considered his property)

Shouldn't there be a comma before who in A?

Gagan

In option A, isn't 'who' redundant? If we were to use 'who', should we know place a comma after slaves?

Hi gagan0303,

We don't want a comma there, because that who is used to specify exactly which slaves the author is referring to.

1. ... setting free the more than 500 slaves who were legally considered his property. ← This is like "He set free the slaves who were considered his property".

2. ... setting free the more than 500 slaves, who were legally considered his property. ← This is like "He set free the slaves".

Because the information introduced by this who is essential, we don't want to use a comma in between this who and the noun that it refers to.