Hi
adkikaniThanks for taking time and writing point-wise details..!!
First of all, I took 3:11 minutes, a below par effort, to solve the question and posted my raw understanding - only whatever came first, within half-an-hour. I reviewed it and found couple of errors that i could not figure out and that i would have thought priority-wise. I strictly didn't edit my post for the reasons that i was not having a rock solid understanding(is there one btw?) about a few things. Also, i understand that you don't learn by simply reviewing the answer choices but from mistakes of others and a raw explanation like mine would help others to relate with their approach.
Before i proceed further a big thank to
MentorTutoring for giving proper words to my understanding of the choices. Also, I like
daagh sir's explanations since i like abstract explanations and they are the best ones especially for 700+ level which are what you look for in such heavily dosed questions.
Coming to answer choices. So, here's a look into my raw thought process.
adkikani wrote:
lnm87Michelangelo, it is believed, had made his sculpture of David using an eight-inch plaster model that was recently discovered after being lost for nearly 300 years.
Quote:
A) Michelangelo, it is believed, had made his sculpture of David using an eight-inch plaster model that was recently discovered after being - WRONG. The placeholder pronoun 'it' seems fine. But I think problem is with the placement of 'it is believed' since the its placement in original sentence suggests to modify Michelangelo whereas it should modify usage of eight-inch plaster model or the model itself. Bit confused, but anyhow looks open ended and clumsily ambiguous.
You may like to view
daagh Sir's approach about how without a coma, a verb-ing modifier
using incorrectly modifies David.
Yes, it would have been better had i understood it what he has pointed. And for that reason i had bookmarked it. However, i had a gut feeling on reading that there might be two possibilities from there(
using) on so i wrote open-ended. The only reason that i didn't write about that comma before using is that somewhere on the forum i read that commas are not tested in GMAT.
Quote:
Quote:
B) An eight-inch plaster model is believed to have been used by Michelangelo for his sculpture of David and recently discovered after it was - WRONG. 'And' signifies parallelism but between which two things. So, structure of the sentence is 'Noun(An.. model) + verb(is) + X(believed...David) + and + Y(recently...years). 'Is recently' really doesn't make sense. Not sure though about the way i eliminated it.
Let me
try to help.The core of sentence is a discovery, so ideally I would love to see it as main verb .
In this choice, if you look closely
to have been used and
discovered are made ||el and the sentence no longer
stresses more on a discovery and places discovery and used on same plane of reference.
I think the verb
was lost is also incorrect to show prior of two actions (much like a past perfect tense, much on that in a minute)
AjiteshArun MentorTutoring Can you add your two cents, confirming that discovered is not a verb-ed modifier?
There are many hinge points - SVA, parallelism, meaning etc. as we all know - based on which you can evaluate a sentence. Two ways in which i saw this one based on 'and' marker:
1. An eight-inch plaster model is
believed to have been used by Michelangelo for his sculpture of David and
recently discovered after it was ....
'believed' and 'recently discovered' look far distant to be parallel since belief is age old than discovery - different timelines.
2. An eight-inch plaster model is believed to have been
used by Michelangelo for his sculpture of David and
recently discovered after it was ....
This is more nastier as you can see the chronology of the two possible parallel things.
Agree that discovery can be the main verb but i think you meant 'used' and 'discovered' to be parallel.
Quote:
Quote:
D) It is believed that an eight-inch plaster model that Michelangelo used for his sculpture of David and has recently been discovered after it was : WRONG. Easier to eliminate since 'it' is used twice and they refer to two different things. Also part before and 'It is believed... David' is missing a verb. Plus the clumsiness.
I believe you did superb to catch the absence of missing verb as doubts raised by
Asad. Keep up the good work!
Quote:
E) It is believed that Michelangelo used an eight-inch plaster model for his sculpture of David, and it was recently discovered after having been - WRONG. Easier to eliminate. Again similar error for using 'it' as that in D.
If you meant that second it refers to sculpture and not model, Bingo! Good job.
However, I would still take pronoun as last arsenal in my armor kit, and I guess bigger issue is why are we making two independent clauses and losing core meaning to highlight discovery of model. Let me know if this resonates with you.
AjiteshArun MentorTutoringCould you add why a present participle (in passive form) is used over a past perfect (though later is not present in any options)?
After reading E, i put D and E in same basket for how they used 'it'. But i should not do it since many-a-times GMAT plays psychologically by offering the right answer choice just after a similar looking wrong one. May be i got lucky
D. It was all good till the point 'AND' is reached after which things were devastating since AND requires two ICs. But then, more importantly, it was about missing of a verb. Also, the first 'it' was fine but second one had two possible antecedents - eight-inch plaster model and sculpture of David - most likely, model.
E. This is a disaster so i wrote nothing much however putting it in the same basket as D had a bigger role for not writing much. But it had greater issue with the parallelism than usage of 'it'. I'm sure you know it now what i mean.
Both D and E were open-ended choices so choosing them was not possible.
Lastly, out of five, three choices are gone for parallelism issues but by this time i had spent 3+ minutes.
But thanks to
JonShukhrat for sharing those links about 'it' usage.
However, making rules out of that would be disastrous.
Happy learning...!!
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08 May 2020, 00:56
