Though it had about 11 inches of snow, aviation officials said conditi

A. aviation officials said conditions on the runway at the time of the emergency landing was acceptable: Aviation officials cannot be 11 inches thick. Incorrect.
B. the runway conditions during the emergency landing were acceptable according to aviation officials. cannot be 11 inches thick Incorrect
C. according to aviation officials, the runway was in acceptable condition during the time of the emergency landing: runway placed very far from the modifier. Incorrect
D. the runway was said by aviation officials to be in acceptable condition during the emergency landing Correct
E. aviation officials said that conditions on the runway at the time of the emergency landing were acceptable. Same error as in A

D is correct

egmat mikemcgarry GMATNinja bb daagh
Isn't the use of "during the time" in option C also another reason to eliminate it?
1. The 11 inches of snow seems like the opinion of the Officials too. "According to Aviation Officials"

In C, the placement of the modifier 'according to aviation official' is problematic, giving it a truncated stature of modifying either the previous part or the subsequent part of the sentence. Per se, it is an absolute modifier modifying the entire clause and therefore one should place it at the beginning rather than in the middle as a sandwich.

Secondly, the subordinate clause uses a pronoun 'it' to refer to the subject of the main clause and the subject should be placed immediately after the dependent clause ends. This is the structure of a genuine complex sentence.

This topic is neither enterprising nor educative about the vibe of GMAT

GMATNinja

Please help in this case.

I had confusion between B and D

I choose B as the initial part before comma modifies runway correctly and also in D passive voice is being used which should be avoided in GMAT

Though it had about 11 inches of snow, aviation officials said conditions on the runway at the time of the emergency landing was acceptable.
Can re-write the same sentence as below?
According to aviation officials, though it had about 11 inches of snow, the runway was in acceptable condition at the time of the emergency landing.

took 24 seconds, easy to spot the answer since it has to logically follow the preceding clause. Only D fits logically so didnt have to even read any of the sentences any further.

D has some really strange construction.

D. the runway was said by aviation officials to be in acceptable condition during the emergency landing

Subject - aviation officials
Verb - was said
Object - "the runway"

What is "to be in.. landing" in this sentence? What is the role this is playing?. To me this is answering "what was said" and is hence part of object but it is placed very far from it. Its a truncated object in a way. I don't understand this construction.

AndrewN - can you help please?

Hello, ravigupta2912. The real question you should be asking yourself is how such knowledge will help you answer the question. However, in the interest of answering your questions, if you straighten out the passive construct, you will see that the direct object is there in plain sight, just as you have outlined above:

aviation officials said [that] the runway was in acceptable condition during the emergency landing

In other words, was said... to be can be replaced by a more straightforward said... was in an active construct. The verb to be is simply acting in the capacity of a verb within the clause that forms the direct object.

I hope that helps clarify the matter. Thank you for thinking to ask me about the question.

- Andrew

Thank you. I am asking this because I felt very uncomfortable with this passive construct. So when I think of passive construct, simple sentences with the object coming first come to my mind. Eg: "the bone is eaten by the dog".

Now in this case, the direct object (runway was in acceptable conditions during the emergency landing) is truncated in the sentence. While "the runway" is coming first, "to be acceptable..landings" is coming after both the subject (the aviation officials), which sort of confused me since the object comes BEFORE the subject in a passive construct. I got so lost in the slightly different passive construct, that I lost sight of the massive pronoun error in B.

Related question, when the object is a clause, then, the passive construction of such sentences could usually be truncated? What I mean is that the object (in its entirety) can be placed anywhere in the sentence? Or should I only focus on placement of subject ("the runway" in this case) of the direct clause (direct clause as the object in the larger sentence)

Thank you

I would advise you to focus on the main clause first. Remember, SC tests the clear and concise expression of vital meaning, and you have nothing to work with without a main clause. Identifying the subject of that clause is a key component to achieving a high level of proficiency on SC questions. Do not worry too much about exceptions—they are so named for a reason, and you will likely see just 14-16 SC questions on the exam. (How many exceptions could there be?)

- Andrew

The correct answer should be C or D?

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