The nephew of Pliny the Elder wrote the only eyewitness account of the

I’ll be honest: I don’t immediately see any completely horrible problems with (A). So I wouldn’t eliminate it immediately... but I would immediately think of beer, because Pliny the Elder is pretty tasty. The beer, not the Roman philosopher. Maybe he was tasty too, but judging by the pictures, he wasn't really my type.

This explanation is already off the rails. Let's keep (A) for now, and we’ll line it up with the other tempting choice before we pick a final answer.


(B) is basically a diaper fire. (Not that I’ve ever seen or smelled a diaper fire. But I’ve been around a lot of diapers lately, and a diaper fire can’t be good.)

For starters, I can’t figure out why the phrase “to the historian Tacitus” would appear before “the nephew of Pliny the Elder wrote two letters.” Why not just say that the nephew “wrote two letters to the historian Tacitus”…?

The bigger problem is the phrase beginning with “being.” It’s a hot mess: I guess “being” is trying to act as a modifier for “two letters.” But since it comes after a comma, “being” is acting as an “-ing” modifier for the previous clause, “the nephew… wrote two letters”, and that doesn’t make any sense, since the nephew is the subject of the clause, and the nephew can’t possibly be “the only eyewitness accounts.”

In other words: why not just say “two letters that were the only eyewitness accounts”, instead of messing with that ugly “being” modifier?

So (B) is out.


(C) is also pretty darned confusing. The biggest problem is that “the only eyewitness account” is the subject of the sentence, and it’s nowhere near the phrase “an account of the great eruption of Vesuvius.” So now the sentence arguably says that the only eyewitness account – like, of anything, EVER – was in the two letters. And that makes no sense.

A smaller issue is the phrase “… in two letters by the nephew of Pliny the Elder writing to the historian Tacitus…” For starters, you could argue that it sounds like the letters are doing the writing, and that doesn’t make sense. And even if you’re not sure about that part, there’s absolutely no reason to use the word “writing” there at all – of course the letters were written by somebody.

So we can ditch (C).


This isn’t completely horrible, but it’s not great, either. For starters, the “eyewitness account” is a long way from the phrase “eruption of Vesuvius”, and that makes the sentence much less clear: as you read the beginning of the sentence, it sounds like Pliny’s nephew might have written the only eyewitness account of anything, EVER. Or at the very least, it’s not clear what event the “eyewitness account” is describing until we’re much deeper into the sentence.

I’m also uncomfortable with the phrase “Pliny the Elder’s nephew accounted for the great eruption of Vesuvius…” That literally sounds like Pliny’s nephew might have somehow caused the eruption (consider the phrase “poor planning accounted for the firm’s failure to achieve profitability”, for example). You definitely wouldn’t use the phrase “accounted for” just to say that he wrote a description of the eruption.

So it’s safe to eliminate (D), especially since (A) and (E) are better options.

Speaking of (A) and (E)…


Both of these do a nice thing: they make it clear that the eyewitness account is of the great eruption of Vesuvius, and that makes them better options than the other three answer choices.

The only difference between (A) and (E) is the placement of the phrase “in two letters to the historian Tacitus” – and that phrase should logically describe “the nephew of Pliny the Elder wrote…” And the sentence is just a little bit clearer if the modifier “in two letters to the historian Tacitus” appears right at the beginning of the sentence. In (A), the modifier is just too far away from phrase “the nephew of Pliny the Elder wrote…”

So (E) is our winner.

GMATNinja I am inclined to think that A is the best answer here.
If we were to take away the two intervening prepositional modifiers in A, then the sentence would effectively read as follows:

The nephew of Pliny the Elder wrote the only eyewitness account in two letters to the historian Tacitus.

Which still makes sense.

I think E is a bit non-sensical, one reading of it suggests that the nephew is physically in the two letters...that makes no sense.

Your thoughts?

The nephew of Pliny the Elder wrote the only eyewitness account of the great eruption of Vesuvius in two letters

In two letters to the historian Tacitus, the nephew of Pliny the Elder wrote the only eyewitness account of the great eruption of Vesuvius.

I’ll be honest: I don’t immediately see any completely horrible problems with (A). So I wouldn’t eliminate it immediately... but I would immediately think of beer, because Pliny the Elder is pretty tasty. The beer, not the Roman philosopher. Maybe he was tasty too, but judging by the pictures, he wasn't really my type.

This explanation is already off the rails. Let's keep (A) for now, and we’ll line it up with the other tempting choice before we pick a final answer.


(B) is basically a diaper fire. (Not that I’ve ever seen or smelled a diaper fire. But I’ve been around a lot of diapers lately, and a diaper fire can’t be good.)

For starters, I can’t figure out why the phrase “to the historian Tacitus” would appear before “the nephew of Pliny the Elder wrote two letters.” Why not just say that the nephew “wrote two letters to the historian Tacitus”…?

The bigger problem is the phrase beginning with “being.” It’s a hot mess: I guess “being” is trying to act as a modifier for “two letters.” But since it comes after a comma, “being” is acting as an “-ing” modifier for the previous clause, “the nephew… wrote two letters”, and that doesn’t make any sense, since the nephew is the subject of the clause, and the nephew can’t possibly be “the only eyewitness accounts.”

In other words: why not just say “two letters that were the only eyewitness accounts”, instead of messing with that ugly “being” modifier?

So (B) is out.


(C) is also pretty darned confusing. The biggest problem is that “the only eyewitness account” is the subject of the sentence, and it’s nowhere near the phrase “an account of the great eruption of Vesuvius.” So now the sentence arguably says that the only eyewitness account – like, of anything, EVER – was in the two letters. And that makes no sense.

A smaller issue is the phrase “… in two letters by the nephew of Pliny the Elder writing to the historian Tacitus…” For starters, you could argue that it sounds like the letters are doing the writing, and that doesn’t make sense. And even if you’re not sure about that part, there’s absolutely no reason to use the word “writing” there at all – of course the letters were written by somebody.

So we can ditch (C).


This isn’t completely horrible, but it’s not great, either. For starters, the “eyewitness account” is a long way from the phrase “eruption of Vesuvius”, and that makes the sentence much less clear: as you read the beginning of the sentence, it sounds like Pliny’s nephew might have written the only eyewitness account of anything, EVER. Or at the very least, it’s not clear what event the “eyewitness account” is describing until we’re much deeper into the sentence.

I’m also uncomfortable with the phrase “Pliny the Elder’s nephew accounted for the great eruption of Vesuvius…” That literally sounds like Pliny’s nephew might have somehow caused the eruption (consider the phrase “poor planning accounted for the firm’s failure to achieve profitability”, for example). You definitely wouldn’t use the phrase “accounted for” just to say that he wrote a description of the eruption.

So it’s safe to eliminate (D), especially since (A) and (E) are better options.

Speaking of (A) and (E)…


Both of these do a nice thing: they make it clear that the eyewitness account is of the great eruption of Vesuvius, and that makes them better options than the other three answer choices.

The only difference between (A) and (E) is the placement of the phrase “in two letters to the historian Tacitus” – and that phrase should logically describe “the nephew of Pliny the Elder wrote…” And the sentence is just a little bit clearer if the modifier “in two letters to the historian Tacitus” appears right at the beginning of the sentence. In (A), the modifier is just too far away from phrase “the nephew of Pliny the Elder wrote…”

So (E) is our winner.

Just a question, why "in two letters to the historian Tacitus" in E is not considered a fragment? I excluded it because I thought it was a fragment since there was no verb