The new crime thriller book is about the crown jewels of

Correct answer is A based on the point of elimination technique.

why "...had been..." correct?

I agree there should be a comma their. I chose B

But which is probably better suited.

which had been stolen by an international cat burglar who turns out to be the cousin of Prince Harry.

As this is a nonrestrictive clause modifying the crown jewels

-since the object is "the crown jewels", E is eliminated since who does not correctly refer to the object.
-no commas were used because the clause are essential refer to MGMAT SC Pg 87.
-stole, and stealed are incorrect, A and C eliminated.
-cat burglar = person. Therefore, "who" is needed after cat burglar, D eliminated.

A

It waS BTWN A AND B , BUT I CHOSE B CAUSE YOU DONT NEED AN HAD ! THERE IS NO SEQUENCE HERE ? PLZ EXPLAIN ME THAT DOUBT

Hello,

Any idea why Had Been is marked as a correct answer. I don't think we need a HAD here. Verbal experts, please help.

Thanks
abhimahna

Your point is correct - there is no reason for using past perfect. Option A has been modified. Thank you for pointing out.

Hi,

It's said A is the correct answer but "jewels of London" is plural so it should be "were stolen" instead of "was stolen" I guess. Can somebody explain this?

Correct, I do agree. It should be 'which were' rather than 'which was'.

sayantanc2k, please recheck once. Thanks.

Absolutely... sorry for the oversight and thank you for pointing out - rectified the error.

Also, underlined portion in the question should be corrected to avoid confusion

Hi,
A small doubt. I thought that "about the crown jewels of London" is itself a prepositional phrase. Doesn't then which point to crime thriller book. Please help me. I am so confused about it.

Sent from my A0001 using GMAT Club Forum mobile app

GMATNinja, Can you please explain why B is wrong here?

I rejected A because "which" represents non-essential modifier whereas "that" represents essential modifier and in this case I thought "that" makes more sense.

RMD007, it's a question of which error is the most significant. In (B), there's a much bigger problem: "the crown jewels of London that were stole by a famous international cat burglar." "Jewels that were stole" is unambiguously wrong. No grey area there.

But there is grey area when it comes to the difference between an essential modifier ("that") and a non-essential modifier ("which"). It's basically a judgment call in most cases -- it's hard to know exactly which one is intended by the author, and it's therefore really hard for the GMAT to test the difference between "that" and "which." Here's a silly example:

• The restaurant, which serves delicious bhindi masala, is outstanding.
• The restaurant that serves delicious bhindi masala is outstanding.

Sure, these mean slightly different things: in the second one, you presumably wouldn't know which restaurant I was talking about unless I mention the bhindi masala. But there's no way to know which sentence is right and which one is wrong -- they're both fine. So you're unlikely to see this as a crystal-clear determining factor on an actual GMAT question.

Mmm... bhindi masala.

Thanks GMATNinja, for the explanation. I just kept thinking on "that" vs "which" and overlooked this error.

+1..

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