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

Hello Everyone!

Let's tackle this question, one problem at a time, and narrow it down to the correct choice! This is an updated version of an old question, so even if you've seen this before, it's going to be slightly different! To begin, here is the original question with the major differences between the options highlighted in orange:

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.

(A) 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
(B) Qin Shi huang, China's first emperor, was protected in his afterlife by an army of terracotta warriors that was created more than 2,000 years ago by 700,000 artisans who took more than 36 years to complete it
(C) it took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to create an army of terra-cotta warriors more than 2,000 years ago that would protect Qin Shi Huang, China's first emperor, in his afterlife
(D) more than 2,000 years ago, 700,000 artisans worked more than 36 years to create an army of terra-cotta warriors to protect Qin Shi Huang, China's first emperor, in his afterlife
(E) more than 36 years were needed to complete the army of terra-cotta warriors that 700,000 artisans created 2,000 years ago to protect Qin Shi Huang, China's first emperor, in his afterlife

If we look over the options, it's clear that each option includes the same information in a totally different order. It's going to be too difficult to tackle every single difference. So what do we do?

Whenever we see a question like this, we should look to the non-underlined portion for a clue to what we should focus on:

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.

The non-underlined portion of this sentence is a modifier! Since that is the only thing that all 5 options has in common, we can focus on that to look for problems. When we focus on modifiers, we must make sure it's placed next to what it's modifying, and it should be clear for readers to understand. Let's see how each option breaks down! To make things easier to spot, I'll include the non-underlined modifier to each option:

(A) 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.

This is CORRECT! The modifier is referring to the army of terra cotta warriors, and it's clear because both the modifier and its antecedent are right next to each other.

(B) Rivaling the pyramids of Egypt or even the ancient cities of the Maya as an achievement, Qin Shi huang, China's first emperor, was protected in his afterlife by an army of terracotta warriors that was created more than 2,000 years ago by 700,000 artisans who took more than 36 years to complete it

This is INCORRECT because Qin Shi Huang isn't what the modifier is referring to - it's referring to the terra cotta army. By putting Qin Shi Huang next to the modifier, readers may mistakenly think that the man himself rivaled the pyramids of Egypt and ancient cities of the Maya, which doesn't really make sense.

(C) Rivaling the pyramids of Egypt or even the ancient cities of the Maya as an achievement, it took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to create an army of terra-cotta warriors more than 2,000 years ago that would protect Qin Shi Huang, China's first emperor, in his afterlife

This is INCORRECT because it uses a vague pronoun "it" after the modifier. It's not clear at all what "it" is referring to - what took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to create? Your reader might be able to figure it out after reading the sentence a few times, and that's a bad thing! It should be clear to readers what the modifier is referring to!

(D) Rivaling the pyramids of Egypt or even the ancient cities of the Maya as an achievement, more than 2,000 years ago, 700,000 artisans worked more than 36 years to create an army of terra-cotta warriors to protect Qin Shi Huang, China's first emperor, in his afterlife

This is INCORRECT because, again, it's not clear what rivaled the pyramids and cities of the Maya. This sentence also strangely states that the artisans may have rivaled the pyramids and cities of the Maya? It's incredibly vague and confusing, so let's rule this one out!

(E) Rivaling the pyramids of Egypt or even the ancient cities of the Maya as an achievement, more than 36 years were needed to complete the army of terra-cotta warriors that 700,000 artisans created 2,000 years ago to protect Qin Shi Huang, China's first emperor, in his afterlife

This is INCORRECT because the modifier isn't placed next to what it's referring to. The sentence is confusing for readers to decipher, which is a big no-no on the GMAT! Modifiers and antecedents should be right next to each other and clear to readers!


There you have it - option A was the correct choice all along! It's the only option that places the modifier and antecedent next to each other!


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