ynk wrote:
hi mike,
can u please tell me what's wrong with option C?
Dear
ynk,
I'm happy to respond.
First of all, my friend, I am going to chide you for being so informal in your language. With all due respect, you have presented your request the way a child would. Think about it. What if some other user on GMAT Club reads this, and some day is in a position of power --- perhaps someone who might hire you or some partner with whom you will negotiate a deal. What if your casual and sloppy language now makes an impression on that person? My friend, have respect for yourself. Always put your best forward. Especially in a question about GMAT SC, always strive to maintain the same standards the GMAT itself keeps on SC. Always hold yourself to the highest standards -- that is one of the habits of excellence.
As your question --- here's the SC question again:
Daniel Bernoulli (1700 – 1782) derived the famous fluid equation named after him, to explain an airplane’s wing’s generation of lift, and made a discovery that led to an early method of measuring blood pressure.
(A) equation named after him, to explain an airplane’s wing’s generation of lift
(B) equation named after him, and this principle explains the lift of an airplane’s wing
(C) equation, named it after himself, explained how an airplane’s wing is generating lift
(D) equation named for him, giving an explanation of the generation of the lift of an airplane’s wing
(E) equation named for him, which explains how an airplane’s wing generates liftThere are a few problems with
(C). First of all, this makes the mistake of false parallelism. You see, Parallelism is not primarily is a grammatical structure: instead, it is primarily a
logical structure. The grammar merely reflects the logic. If we get a string of verbs in a sentence, it is not necessarily correct to put them all into parallel unless they logically belong in parallel. The mistake in
(C) reflects a very mechanical understanding of Parallelism, thinking only on the level of grammar and not on the level of logic.
The second problem is the a subtle change in meaning --- the prompt tells us that the fluid equation was "
named after" Bernoulli, but exactly did that happen? Did Bernoulli create the equation and name it after himself? Or, did he simply publish the fluid equation, and in time, others referred to it as "Bernoulli's Equation"? We don't really know, so we have to leave that ambiguous. Choice
(C) explicitly choose the first option, the option that Bernoulli named the equation after himself, and we don't know that this is the case.
There is also a logical problem in putting the verb "
explain" in parallel with the others. Yes, the equation explains an airplane's lift. Was Bernoulli himself trying to explain an airplane's lift? NO! He lived well over a century before airplanes were around, so he couldn't possibly have been trying to explain airplanes. This is an example of the logical problems that false parallelism creates.
Finally, the progressive tense "
is generating" is 100% awkward and incorrect. That seems to suggest we are taking about a specific airplane wing, perhaps sitting right outside our room. This is not the sense of the sentence. We are talking about airplane wings in general, so we need the general present tense, not the present progressive.
Does all this make sense?
Mike
_________________
Mike McGarry
Magoosh Test PrepEducation is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire. — William Butler Yeats (1865 – 1939)