crunchboss wrote:
Now generally regarded as a forgery, the Kensington Rune Stone, a 90-kilogram slab of inscribed rock discovered in Minnesota in 1898, was said to have recorded an encounter between Native Americans and Norse explorers in 1362 and thus was cited as evidence that Europeans explored North America in pre-Columbian times.
(A) was said to have recorded an encounter between Native Americans and Norse explorers in 1362 and thus was cited as evidence that Europeans explored
(B) was said to record an encounter between Native Americans and Norse explorers in 1362, thus being cited as evidence for European exploration of
(C) said to have recorded an encounter between Native Americans and Norse explorers in 1362, and thus cited as evidence for European exploration of
(D) which was said to record an encounter between Native Americans and Norse explorers in 1362, and thus cited as evidence that Europeans explored
(E) which, said to have recorded an encounter between Native Americans and Norse explorers in 1362, was thus cited as evidence for Europeans exploring
Source: GMAT Prep Question Pack 1
Mike Mc Garry Sir,
This is one of a difficult question of its type and has so many thing participial vs verb form, in correct structure. Normally whenever I have posted a SC question i have had a doubt in a particular option , but this time I am requesting you sir to analyze all the options.
OA: A, But I have doubt in Option A also -
(A) was said to have recorded an encounter between Native Americans and Norse explorers in 1362 and thus was cited as evidence that Europeans explored
My Doubt: Here don't we have structure issue? and should be preceded by a comma and the subject should be introduced before the verb after that comma.
Dear
crunchboss,
I'm happy to respond.
First of all, in the OA, (A), there is no punctuation problem. We have a single subject and two verbs + predicates in parallel. Here's a diagram of the sentence:
Now generally regarded as a forgery, = modifying phrase, modifying the subject
the Kensington Rune Stone, = the MAIN SUBJECT, subject of both verbs
a 90-kilogram slab of inscribed rock discovered in Minnesota in 1898, =
appositive phrase, modifying the subject
//
was said to have recorded an encounter between Native Americans and Norse explorers in 1362 = first branch of parallelism
and thus = conjunction joining two parallel branches
//
was cited as evidence that Europeans explored [/u]North America in pre-Columbian times. = second branch of parallelism
Typically, when we have a single subject and two verbs with predicates in parallel, we don't separate the two verb phrases with a comma. That is typical, although if the predicates are both long, sometimes a comma is used to help organize the sentence flow. It wouldn't be "wrong" to include a comma before the "
and," but it's not necessary. That's
(A), the OA, and it's both correct and elegant.
(B)
was said to record an encounter between Native Americans and Norse explorers in 1362, thus being cited as evidence for European exploration of I think "
to have recorded" sounds a little better than "
to record," in this context, although technically, either is correct. Notice, rather than a parallel structure, this version chooses another structure. It's grammatically correct but awkward. The phrasing "
thus being cited as evidence . . ." is particularly awkward and clumsy and not particularly direct. Passive participles of this form are always a bit awkward, the
"being" + [past participle] form; it's hard to think of an example where this would be desirable, especially because it always would be correct to use the past participle without the word "
being." Also, instead of the direct subject-verb construction of "
that Europeans explored North America . . .", this
congeals the action into a noun, "
European exploration," which is less direct, less active, and less powerful. None of this is definitively wrong, but it all leaves a bad taste in the mouth. Choice (A) is clearly superior.
(C)
said to have recorded an encounter between Native Americans and Norse explorers in 1362, and thus cited as evidence for European exploration of This is wrong. This commits the famous
missing-verb mistake. The structure of this answer is: [
noun modifier][subject][appositive][participial phrase #1]"and thus"[participial phrase #2]. Lots of information, but no verb. Grammatically, this is 100% wrong.
(D)
which was said to record an encounter between Native Americans and Norse explorers in 1362, and thus cited as evidence that Europeans explored This is wrong. This also commits the famous missing-verb mistake. Here, we have nothing but a subject and bunch of noun modifiers. The last is a gigantic "
which" clause, with two verbs in parallel inside, but there's no full verb for the subject. This is also 100% wrong.
(E)
which, said to have recorded an encounter between Native Americans and Norse explorers in 1362, was thus cited as evidence for Europeans exploringThis is wrong. Yet again, this commits the famous missing-verb mistake. Now, inside the "
which" clause, we have a participial phrase, then a verb, but all that is inside the which clause, and there's no verb in the independent clause. This is 100% wrong.
Choices (C), (D), and (E) are just plain wrong, dead-where-they-stand wrong. I could see that (B) could be a nasty tricky one for the non-native speaker, because it's hard to give a clear and well-defined rule about what makes something awkward. Choices (C) + (D) + (E) are like three cars with their engines removed: we can't drive those. Choice (B) is like a twelve-year old, beat-up smelly clunker of a car: we
could drive this if we had to, if we had no other choice. Choice (A) like a brand new BMW. Which would you choose?
Does this make sense?
Mike
_________________
Mike McGarry
Magoosh Test PrepEducation is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire. — William Butler Yeats (1865 – 1939)