PrijitDebnath wrote:
Hi Mike, it would be great if you update the OA few days later, so that there is a "suspense element":).
Also, can you tell us if there is some specific condition when "the fact that" is added? Would the following sentence be incorrect:
In the recent incidents of gang violence, innocent people were injured that has especially troubled the city leaders.
Also, I had difficulty in identifying what "that" is modifying in "that has especially troubled the city leaders".
Thanks.
Mo2men wrote:
Hi Mike,
I have a real problem to understand the function of the second 'that' in the choice A.
(A) In the recent incidents of gang violence, it is the fact that innocent people were injured that has especially troubled the city leaders.
Can you please clarify??
Thanks in advance
Dear
PrijitDebnath and
Mo2men,
I'm happy to respond.
What is confusing you both is the proper structure of the use of the "
empty it," a sophisticated rhetorical construction. See:
The Empty ‘It’ on the GMAT Sentence CorrectionThe basic structure is
It is [noun][relative pronoun][verb]It is Mike who wrote this question.
It is the unusual grammatical structure that confuses students.
It is the non-native speakers whom the question most confuses. Immediately after the noun is a relative pronoun, typically "
who" for a person or "
that" for a thing: in these three examples, I underlined the relative pronoun. The relative pronoun begins a relative clause, and the main verb of that clause is the action of the noun. This is structure that provides extra rhetorical emphasis, often because it runs counter to expectation.
Thus, it would be simply factual and uncontroversial to state:
Mike wrote this question.
Now, suppose for some reason, people didn't know I was the author, or folks thought I only knew math and not grammar, or something such as that. They had some idea which made them believe that I couldn't possibly be the author of this question. Then, to counter those expectations, it would be appropriate to say:
It is Mike who wrote this question.
Using that phrasing makes clear that we are saying something beyond the purely factual, that we are provide emphasis on the subject for some reason.
Now, in this question, we could state the information factually:
The fact that innocent people were injured in the recent incidents of gang violence has especially troubled the city leaders.
That is 100% correct. It's not a choice in this question, but it is a perfect correct way to state the information. Notice that the subject of this sentence is the word "
fact" modified by the relative clause, the noun modifying clause beginning with "
that."
Now, we are going to change this to the emphatic construction using the "empty it."
In the recent incidents of gang violence, it is the fact that innocent people were injured that has especially troubled the city leadersThis is version (A), the OA. We have the "
it is," then the long noun phrase is in
green, and then the word "
that" is the relative pronoun that follows the noun in the "empty it" construction.
The more comfortable you get with the "empty it" construction, they more easily you will recognize it.
Does all this make sense?
Mike