Of all the things that Washington could have done in conducting the

Hi,
why A is wrong?..

if you look at the subordinate clause...
Of all the things that Washington could have done in conducting the American Revolution..
I would expect something immediately after that to be getting modified...
and WHAT should it be--?
it will be one of "all the things the sentence is talking about"...

And Is "the war against the British " that thing .. NO

so, the choice is not conveying the meaning properly and has modifier problem..

Hope it helps you in eliminating A..

Hi mikemcgarry,

Can you please post official explanation of this question.

I am not able to comprehend how "However Washington may have conducted the American Revolution" is modifying "The war"..??


Thanks and Regards,
Prakhar

Hi daagh,

Thank you so much for such an explanation.

Thanks and Regards,
Prakhar

Dear Prakhar,
I'm very glad you found the words of daagh helpful: daagh is an impressive individual on this site. If this use of "however" is relatively new to you, I want to recommend this blog, which I think you will find illuminating:
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2016/the-word-h ... -the-gmat/
That blog discusses the two completely different uses of "however," and the rules governing each. That blog also contains the OE of the question.

Best of luck, my friend!
Mike

Official Explanation Magoosh :

Version (A) is clumsy and wordy. We get the idea of Washington's choices, but this is a poor colloquial construction that has, at best, a tenuous connection to the rest of the sentence. This is incorrect.

Version (B) is grammatically correct, but it greatly obscures the meaning of the sentence. "Might have..." implies that we do not know how Washington actually conducted the war. It does imply that the war could not have been won irrespective of Washington's decisions.

Version (C) changes the meaning: in the whole sentence, it almost makes Washington's actions sound detrimental to the American cause!

Version (D) conveys the meaning in a grammatical correct form, using the original meaning of the word "however." This one is promising.

(E) is a run-on sentence. We cannot separate two independent clauses using only "however" and commas. Rather, we would need a semicolon before "however" for (E) to be grammatically sound.

The only possible answer is (D).

Hi mikemcgarry

Thank you for the great question. I would like to clarify the usage of verb tenses here. Usually "would have + been" is used when we have past perfect in another clause. Why "may have conducted"? And if so, why not might have conducted "?

However Washington may have conducted the American Revolution, the war against the British would not have succeeded without French intervention.

Thanks.

I went through shared link.

It is really good help to understand "HOWEVER" technically.

A has the wrong meaning, it says that out of all of the things that Washington did, French intervention was the one that the war would not have succeeded without. B and E are run-ons. C has a word choice problem, ‘besides’ is wrong. D is the right answer.

Hi Mike,

I chose D, as it is the best answer of the lot. One question though, Shouldn't the construction be "However may Washington have conducted the American Revolution... " Or does the placement of the auxiliary verb "may" not matter here?

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