Rivaling the pyramids of Egypt or even the ancient cities of the Maya

Dear Friends,

Here is a detailed explanation to this question-

Meaning is crucial to solving this problem:
Understanding the intended meaning is key to solving this question; the intended core meaning of this sentence is that the army of terra-cotta warriors created to protect Qin Shi Huang in his afterlife is more than 2,000 years old and took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete.

Concepts tested here: Meaning + Pronouns + Parallelism

• Collective nouns (such as “army” in this sentence) are always singular.
• Any elements linked by a conjunction ("and" in this sentence) must be parallel.

A: This answer choice incorrectly refers to the singular noun "army" with the plural pronoun "they"; please remember, collective nouns (such as “army” in this sentence) are always singular. Further, Option A alters the meaning of the sentence through the phrase "to complete them"; the construction of this phrase leads to an incoherent meaning; the intended meaning is that the army of terra-cotta warriors created to protect Qin Shi Huang in his afterlife is more than 2,000 years old and took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete.

B: Trap. This answer choice alters the meaning of the sentence through the phrase "to complete it"; the construction of this phrase leads to an incoherent meaning; the intended meaning is that the army of terra-cotta warriors created to protect Qin Shi Huang in his afterlife is more than 2,000 years old and took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete.

C: Correct. This answer choice avoids the pronoun error seen in Options B and E, as it uses no pronouns. Further, Option C uses the phrase "took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete", conveying the intended meaning - that the army of terra-cotta warriors created to protect Qin Shi Huang in his afterlife is more than 2,000 years old and took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete. Additionally, Option C maintains parallelism between the phrases "is more than 2,000 years old" and "took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete".

D: This answer choice alters the meaning of the sentence through the clause "700,000 artisans took more than 36 years to complete"; the construction of this clause leads to an incoherent meaning, as it lacks an object; the intended meaning is that the army of terra-cotta warriors created to protect Qin Shi Huang in his afterlife is more than 2,000 years old and took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete.

E: This answer choice incorrectly refers to the singular noun "army" with the plural pronoun "they"; please remember, collective nouns (such as “army” in this sentence) are always singular. Further, Option E fails to maintain parallelism between the phrase "is more than 2,000 years old" and the clause "to complete them took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years"; please remember, any elements linked by a conjunction ("and" in this sentence) must be parallel.

Hence, C is the best answer choice.

All the best!
Experts' Global Team

Taken from another forum:

Summary:
The terra cotta army is an archaeological find, like a pyramid. The confusion stems from the fact that "soldiers" are what make up the monument. Try treating the entire army as a pyramid and the soldiers as the steps, it will be clearerCorrect response is C.

... army ... is more than 2,000 years old and took ... more than 36 years to complete.

Choice B is wrong because of the superfluous "it." Examples

Gould's most recent book, "The Structure of Evolutionary Theory" (2002), is a 1433-page opus that took him more than 20 years to complete.

Susanna Clarke admits that her first novel took her more than 10 years to write.

The letter, of just 250 or so Chinese characters, took her more than two hours to compose.

GMAT Review 12th Edition..Sentence Correction ..Question no. 61.

answer is ( C ) .

Rivaling the pyramids of Egypt or even the ancient cities of the Maya as an achievement, the army of terra-cotta warriors created to protect Qin Shi Huang, China’s first emperor, in his afterlife is more than 2,000 years old and took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete.

Why you dont want "it"?
"it" is the pronoun for Qin Shi Huang, so "The army...took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete Qin Shi Huang" seems to be OK, doesnt it?

Thanks Tommy.

Hey Noburu,

Think of the logic. He's not the one who got completed, he's the Japanese guy who built the warriors. It's the warriors that were completed, and they're plural.

-t

It is similar to this : " The movie "The Simpsons" took 500 people 3 weeks to complete.

'It' is redundant as the subject takes care of 'it' .

The correct ans is C. Please edit the OA given in this question.( it is a repetition of OG12/61 with different ans choices)



A. took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete them- them is wrong for pointing to Army, also pronoun use is bad here
B. took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete it- using it sentence beomes
The Sculpture took Y men 4 hours to complete it.- in the same caluse i can't use one noun two times that too as sub and as obj
C. took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete

D. 700,000 artisans took more than 36 years to complete the construction becomes a new IC, we need comma before and . also we need pronoun to refer the THE ARMY


E. to complete them took 700,000 artisans more than 36 yearswrong construction [/quote]

Well, it is the only difference between B and C. So, if you agree that C is better, then there cannot be anything else wrong in B (except the it): )

By the way, this redundant pronoun phenomenon is actually quite prominently tested. This is from Verbal supplement:

The computer company’s present troubles are a result of techno-logical stagnation, marketing missteps, and managerial blunders that several attempts at revising corporate strategies have failed to correct them.

them is redundant here.

Let me know if you want more official examples of this nature.

Rivaling the pyramids of Egypt or even the ancient cities of the Maya as an achievement, the army of terra-cotta warriors created to protect Qin Shi Huang, China’s first emperor, in his afterlife is more than 2,000 years old and took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete them.

A. took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete them
Wrong.
"them" is redundant. The correct structure is: the army of terra-cotta took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete them.
The army is collective noun --> singular ---> "them" is wrong.

B. took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete it
Wrong. "it" is redundant. The correct structure is: the army of terra-cotta took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete it

C. took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete
Correct. The structure is: the army of terra-cotta is more than 2000 years old and took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete. Good parallel structure.

D. 700,000 artisans took more than 36 years to complete
Wrong. Parallelism problem. "took" must be placed BEFORE "700,000 artisans".

E. to complete them too 700,000 artisans more than 36 years
Wrong. Parallelism problem. "is more than 2000 years old and to complete them too..."
Pls help with the explanation of the correct answer. I was confused between B and D, it will be great if you could help me understand why D is not acceptable[/quote]

Hope it helps.

To answer your questions and lead you to the right answer:

First, what's the subject of the sentence? (e.g. What's it about?)

the army of terra-cotta warriors

Now, let's look at the rest of the sentence...

created to protect Qin Shi Huang, China’s first emperor, in his afterlife

This isn't really important to answering the question. Ignore it.

is more than 2,000 years old and took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete them.


OK, let's put this together.
the army of terra-cotta warriors is more than 2,000 years old and took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete them.

The way the grammar of this sentence works is this:

THE ARMY…is (x)…and (y).

Let's make this easier by breaking it up into two new, shorter sentences.

The army is more than 2,000 years old. It took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete.

The "it" in this sentence is a pronoun standing in for "the army". In the correct answer, C, the pronoun is not needed because we use "and" as a coordinating conjunction to link the two clauses that share a common subject. This is also why both A & B are wrong.

D is not a right choice because it changes the subject from THE ARMY to 700,000 ARTISANS. For D to be right, we would need "it" at the end of the clause. To see why, again try breaking this up into two shorter sentences:
The army is more than 2,000 years old. 700,000 artisans took more than 36 years to complete <WHAT?>.

Hope that helps.

Rivaling the pyramids of Egypt or even the ancient cities of the Maya as an achievement, the army of terra-cotta warriors created to protect Qin Shi Huang, China’s first emperor, in his afterlife is more than 2,000 years old and took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete them.

A. took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete them -> The army
B. took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete it -> it is not required. The X took Y to complete. Took is acting as a modifier about X.
C. took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete -> Correct
D. 700,000 artisans took more than 36 years to complete -> X is Y and Z took sometime to complete. What? As "Z took sometime to complete" is acting as Independent clause, we need a object to properly convey the meaning.

The bat used by the great Sachin and crafted by workers of the willow factory. -> Make sense
The bat used by the great Sachin and workers of the willow factory crafted-> Forged what?

E. to complete them took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years . Them -> cannot refer to the army.

This sentence states two main facts about the construction of the army of terra-cotta warriors. It also describes the army of terra-cotta warriors.

WHAT ARE THE ERRORS IN THE ORIGINAL SENTENCE?

Rivaling the pyramids of Egypt or even the ancient cities of the Maya as an achievement, the army of terra-cotta warriors created to protect Qin Shi Huang, China’s first emperor, in his afterlife is more than 2,000 years old and took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete them.

1) This sentence has one clause as shown. The sentence begins with a modifier “rivaling the pyramids…”.
2) This modifier modifies the subject “army of terra-cotta warriors”. The subject is then followed by another modifier “created to protect…”.
3) This subject has two verbs in parallel construction as shown. These two verbs indicate two facts about the “army of terra-cotta warriors”.
4) In this sentence, the use of pronoun “them” is unnecessary.
5) Furthermore, it does not agree in number with its antecedent. ”Them” refers to the subject of the sentence – “the army”. Since “army” is a collective noun, it is singular and hence the pronoun referring to it should also be singular.
6) Furthermore, the use is redundant as explained below.
7) Lets consider the sentence with only verb 2 and with the pronoun replaced by the noun it refers to:

The army of terra-cotta warriors took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete the army of terra-cotta warriors.
As you can see the noun – army of terra-cotta warriors is unnecessarily repeated. Lets consider a simpler sentence to understand this better.


Process of elimination :-

Choice A: Pronoun redundancy error – "them"
Choice B: Pronoun redundancy error as in Choice A.
Choice C: No Errors
Choice D: Punctuation Error: The structure of this sentence is such that the subject for verb 2 in the original sentence is no longer “the army of terra-cotta warriors”. The subject is “700,000 artisans”. Hence this sentence now has two independent clauses but these are not connected using comma + and. These are connecting using only “and”. This is incorrect.
Choice E: Pronoun error as in Choice A. This choice is similar to choice A. The placement of verb modifier “to complete them” has been changed. Thus, Choice C is the correct answer.

Rivaling the pyramids of Egypt or even the ancient cities of the Maya as an achievement, the army of terra-cotta warriors created to protect Qin Shi Huang, China’s first emperor, in his afterlife is more than 2,000 years old and took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete them.

A. took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete them
B. took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete it
C. took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete
D. 700,000 artisans took more than 36 years to complete
E. to complete them took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years

A, D & E - Can be easily eliminated

Between B and C - "it" in B is redundant

Hence C

"took 700,000 artisans" OR "700,000 artisans took" PLEASE SOMEONE HELP ..I always get confused in such types of construction... I was confused between C & D.

Hello ARS1988

Lets try to read the sentence after removing all the clutter:

I will strike out modifiers from the sentence in order to avoid confusion:

Rivaling the pyramids of Egypt or even the ancient cities of the Maya as an achievement, the army of terra-cotta warriors created to protect Qin Shi Huang, China’s first emperor, in his afterlife is more than 2,000 years old and took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete them.

Let's look at more closely now:

The Army .... Is .... X And Took.... Y

The Army:
- Is (Verb) ..... AND
- Took (Verb) .....

Now, look at the word AND, does it reminds you of anything? Yeap - "And" mandates strict parallelism at both the sides (Left and Right)

Now, when you carefully review option D, the structure is as per below:

The Army:
- Is (Verb) ..... AND
- (Subject)............Took (Verb) .....

This has two errors:
- Parallelism is not maintained
- 700,000 artisans - becomes the subject now instead of The Army

And Hence - C is the correct answer.

Please do let me know if this helps to clarify your doubt.

Great analysis !!!

Hello Everyone!

Let's tackle this question, one thing at a time, and narrow down the options to find the correct answer quickly! To begin, here is the original question with major differences highlighted in orange:

Rivaling the pyramids of Egypt of even the ancient cities of the Maya as an achievement, the army of terra-cotta warriors created to protect Qin Shi Huang, China’s first emperor, in his afterlife is more than 2,000 years old and took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete them.

A. took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete them
B. took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete it
C. took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete
D. 700,000 artisans took more than 36 years to complete
E. to complete them took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years

After a quick glance over the options, a couple key differences jump out:

1. took 700,000 artisans / 700,000 artisans took (Meaning/Parallelism)
2. to complete / to complete them / to complete it (Pronouns)

Let's start with #2 on our list: pronouns. Pronouns are a pretty easy grammar concept to check for, and it should eliminate 2-3 options rather quickly. We need to make sure that any pronouns clearly refer back to the singular subject (the army) and agree with it:

A. took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete them
B. took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete it
C. took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete
D. 700,000 artisans took more than 36 years to complete
E. to complete them took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years

We can eliminate options A & E right off the bat because they use the plural pronoun "them" to refer back to a singular subject "the army."

Now that we have it narrowed down, let's tackle #1 on our list: parallelism. This sentence discusses two interesting facts about the terra-cotta army:

Rivaling the pyramids of Egypt of even the ancient cities of the Maya as an achievement, the army of terra-cotta warriors created to protect Qin Shi Huang, China’s first emperor, in his afterlife is more than 2,000 years old and took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete them.

We need to make sure both phrases in pink are written using parallel structure. Let's see how they break down if we add in the first half:

B. is more than 2,000 years old and took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete it
This is INCORRECT because the extra pronoun "it" at the end isn't necessary and creates a non-parallel construction.

C. is more than 2,000 years old and took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete
This is CORRECT! It's written using parallel construction, and there aren't any pronouns to deal with!

D. is more than 2,000 years old and 700,000 artisans took more than 36 years to complete
This is INCORRECT because the two phrases aren't parallel in how they're worded.


There you have it - option C is the correct choice! It doesn't have any issues with pronouns, and the two facts about the terra-cotta army are written with parallel wording!


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