hfiratozturk wrote:
Mike,
In your previous post, you mentioned that a sentence for example "Although covered in about 11 inches of snow" cannot be correct. Instead, it should be written for example "Although road is covered in about 11 inches of snow". Could you please explain how we used this structure (without subject) in this example?
Thanks,
Dear
hfiratozturk,
First of all, understand that grammar is seldom as black & white as, say, mathematics. There are many more shades of grey.
In this sentence, the "
Although covered in about 11 inches of snow" is not even in the part of the sentence about which we get to choose, so it doesn't affect answering the question. I would say --- this structure,
[subordinate conjunction] + [participial phrase] or
[subordinate conjunction] + [adjective] runs the danger of being too informal. I believe in the
OG, it only appears in an incorrect answer choice, never in a correct sentence. I did find one example in PowerPrep in which "
Although happy that ...." was part of the non-underlined section of a sentence. I will say, I have tremendous respect for
MGMAT and their material, but I am a little suspicious about this question because of this. I suppose the only thing omitted from the "
although" clause would be some small subject/verb combination like "
it was" --- instead of "
Although covered in about 11 inches of snow", we would have "
Although it was covered in about 11 inches of snow" ---- so I suppose in this case,
MGMAT would argue that dropping the "
it was" is acceptable. I don't think the OA version of this sentence is ideal ---- remember, the correct answer on GMAT SC is not necessarily ideal, only the best answer from among the five choices. I wouldn't say this construction is "wrong", but merely less than perfect, and potentially not GMAT-like.
I would say --- try not to worry about the parts of these practice sentences about which you don't get to choose. Sometimes, there will be less-than-perfect elements --- not out-and-out wrong, but simply less the perfect --- in the non-underlined part of the sentence. Wherever this particular structure appears in the underlined part of the sentence, at least in official material, it is always part of an incorrect answer; I believe this is a guideline you can follow. Remember that even a correct answer on a GMAT SC may not be ideal, only the best of the five answers. Remember, this is not math --- language is sloppy --- it's a living thing --- and the rules & guidelines of grammar & syntax abound in exceptions and shades of gray. If you are searching for axiomatic rules to follow dogmatically, you will be disappointed.
Does this make sense?
Mike