skamal7 wrote:
The Olympic Games helped to keep peace among the pugnacious states of the Greek world in that a sacred truce was proclaimed during the festival's month.
I'm happy to help with this.
This is GMAT SC #60 in the OG13.
(A) world in that a sacred truce was proclaimed during the festival's monthThe
OG feels that the phrase "
in that" is somewhat stilted and over-formal. It does use two words where one would suffice. This one is not black & white wrong, but more a shade of gray. If all the other answers were clearly wrong, this probably could pass as a correct anwer.
(B) world, proclaiming a sacred truce during the festival’s monthMisplaced modifier. The world isn't "proclaiming", so who is? The games? the states? The GMAT doesn't like ambiguity. Also, this sentence has two distinct actions, so it would be best phrased as two full [noun] + [verb] clauses, and this option casts the second half of the sentence as a
participial phrase rather than as a clause. This is wrong.
(C) world when they proclaimed a sacred truce for the festival monthA pronoun with unclear antecedent --- does "they" mean the states? the games? the people of Greece (not mentioned explicitly --- another no-no for antecedents on the GMAT!). The antecedent of the pronoun "they" is ambiguity. On GMAT SC, ambiguity = death. This is wrong.
(D) world, for a sacred truce was proclaimed during the month of the festivalVery clear. We have two full clauses, joined by the conjunction "for" (which means "because"), thus making clear the causal link between the two actions. This is sleek, efficient, and direct ---- a very strong answer.
(E) world by proclamation of a sacred truce that was for the month of the festivalA winner of the flabby awkward Olympics! This changes the verb "proclaimed" to a noun "proclamation", and almost invariably, this is the GMAT's strategy for changing a correct answer into a wrong answer. Whenever a verb is re-written as a noun, that almost always makes the sentence more awkward, less direct, and more wordy --- that's exactly what we have here. This version is an unholy abomination that should be taken out back and shot. This is incorrect.
Again, if everything else failed, we might go with (A) in a pinch, but here, (D) is a much stronger answer --- clearly (D) is the best possible answer here.
Mike
I rejected D because it changed the original meaning of the sentence from a qualifier relationship to a causal relationship. Please guide How i could have prevented this error from happening ?