Turn-of-the-century magician Harry Houdini claimed, for his

Dear Friends,

Here is a detailed explanation to this question



A: This answer choice uses the incorrect idiom construction "claimed...the ability to"; the idiomatically correct way to express that someone expressed, using the word "claimed", that they possessed an ability is "claimed...to be able" or "claimed that...". Thus, this answer choice is incorrect

B: This answer choice uses the unidiomatic construction "ability of holding", rather than the correct phrase "ability to hold". Thus, this answer choice is incorrect.

C: This answer choice repeats the error seen in Option B. Thus, this answer choice is incorrect.

D: This answer choice maintains proper idiom use throughout the sentence. Thus, this answer choice is correct.

E: This answer choice uses the idiomatically incorrect phrase "claimed...being". Thus, this answer choice is incorrect.

Hence, D is the best answer choice.

One important thing to remember here is that the phrase "for his famous water-torture cell trick" is presented between two commas and can, thus, be removed from the sentence to observe the sentence structure more clearly.

To understand the concept of "Use of Being on GMAT", you may want to watch the following video (~2 minutes):



To understand the concept of "Extra Information Between two Commas on GMAT", you may want to watch the following video (~1 minute):



All the best!
Experts' Global Team

IMO D
A - wrong meaning claimed....the ability...
B - wrong idiom - ability of holding....
C - same as B
E - use of being is not a preferred option and is wordy

Hope this helps. Anyone has any better explanation please do share

claimed can be used in different ways:

claimed + that
... claimed that he had the ability ...

claimed + to infinitive
... claimed to be able to ...

claimed with quotes
"I have the ...", claimed Houdini

Option (B) is not correct and needs to be put into one of these forms.

Grrr. This is a tough question if you do not know the idiom for sure. But let’s see how we could go about this without that knowledge. I got this right in 1:06, but frankly, if you knew the idiom, this is a half minute question. Just one thing before we dive in: ALL the answer choices have the same portion enclosed in commas : “for his famous water-torture cell trick”. You can disregard this entirely. Just focus on the non-underlined portion and the end of second half of the answer choices.

Turn-of-the-century magician Harry Houdini claimed, for his famous water-torture cell trick, the ability to hold his breath for more than three minutes.

A. for his famous water-torture cell trick, the ability to hold his breath

Let’s look at this for a moment. Let’s cut and boil this down a little. Harry claimed the ability. Frankly that is ALL that this sentence is. But would you say that? I claimed the ability. He claimed the ability. I know this is a horrible way for a non-native speaker to go about things, but for native speakers it might help you out to think this way. If you absolutely must yellow flag this and move on. Do not fall in the blank-face abyss.

B. for his famous water-torture cell trick, he has the ability to hold his breath

Harry claimed he has the ability to hold his breath. This grammatically doesn’t pose any issues. I may have liked to see a THAT before HE but it isn’t terrible. The only problem here is one of MEANING. This is a bit cruel but the magician Harry Houdini mentioned is pretty famous in a way. You should know he passed away a number of years ago. You cannot have, tense-wise, the word HAS therefore. He is no longer alive. Yellow flag this if you are unsure.

C. for his famous water-torture cell trick, the ability of him holding his breath

Harry claimed the ability of holding him holding his breath. C’mon, people, this is pretty awkward. Let’s just leave it there. When I read this I immediately considered the ambiguity as to who HIM could refer to.

D. for his famous water-torture cell trick, to be able to hold his breath

Harry claimed to be able to hold his breath. Ah, nice and crisp. Sounds natural. CLAIMED works tense-wise. If it had been CLAIMS we might have had an issue. I also kind of suspected the phrase CLAIM(ED) TO to be more natural. He claimed to know a lot about Greece. I claim to know more than him, however. Flows off the tongue.

E. for his famous water-torture cell trick, being able to hold his breath

Harry claimed being able to hold his breath He claimed being able to jump. He claimed being able to sing. This sounds awkward. I cannot specify the issue at hand with absolute certainty, but there is some ambiguity here as well as a tense-issue. First BEING is used to describe something. David, being a professional blacksmith, has many hammers. The usage in the answer choice doesn’t fit that. Second BEING also has a present tense sense. That is probably more the issue at play here. Houdini passed away many years ago. How could BEING be used to describe this now. I know, people, I know. You want cut and dry mathematical ways to just eliminate this. Compare it with the other answers and choose the best one.

To reiterate a little, remember, you have to choose the best out of the bunch. Conciseness, clarity, redundancy, meaning... there are many things one may consider when it comes to SC. If you do find an absolute reason to eliminate something great, but it may be good to just realize you’re gonna have to play a bit of probability at some point. I, frankly, just “felt” the issues afoot. I didn’t go into GREAT specific detail when solving what the issue was. You are not simply fighting the answer choice – you are also fighting the ticking clock.

Some Kudos would be nice

The verb in 'claimed to be able...' is 'claimed,' not 'to be able'.

The problem with option (A) is this:
'claim + Noun' implies 'demand as a right.' One cannot claim an ability to be his own. Other people could also have the same ability.
So 'claim to be able' gives the accurate meaning. Here 'claim' means 'to make an assertion.'

It is certainly a hard question, especially for a non native speaker. In common parlance, I might be ok with 'claimed the ability ...' but meaning wise it is not correct.

claimed, to be able ...... makes a lot of sense.

Straight D.

"claime to be" is the correct idiom, and only D has it.

IMO D

hi. I have a doubt. Would claimed not require a "that" after it.. As in the magician claimed that??

This helped me understand the correct usage of

X claims to be Y and X claims Z is Y.

X claims to be Y (and variations)
Laney claims to be an expert snowboarder.
Dr. Smith claims to be the inventor of the widget.
Company X claims to have been first to market.

X claims Z is Y (and variations)
Leo claims vanilla is the best ice cream flavor.
Vanilla is the ice cream flavor Leo claims is best.
Lydia claims the rumor is untrue.
The company unveiled what it claims is the world's smallest camcorder.

Soruce: Manhattan Forum

it has to be D : to be able to hold his breath

IMO D....to be able to hold his breath

Even i have the same doubt.
Also im confused between

Ability to do sth &
able to do sth

which of them is correct and in what scenerios?

I believe ability of doing sth is wrong.

Please clairfy

I would prefer able over the ability. and choice D seems to have no error. correct.

Hi everyone,

Can somebody explain to me the structure of this sentence? What is the main clause, etc?
I am confused about the construction of a dependent clause.

"He finally finished his novel, after months of research." -> here do we have a dependent clause? or "after months of research" is not a clause because it doesn't have a subject?

Thank you!

The basic structure of the sentence is as follows:
Turn-of-the-century magician Harry Houdini claimed to be able to hold his breath for more than three minutes.

Subject: Turn-of-the-century magician Harry Houdini
Verb: claimed
Object: to be able to hold his breath for more than three minutes (nominal infinitive phrase)

Now add an adverbial phrase (NOT a dependent clause) "for his famous water-torture cell trick" to say something more about the verb "claim".... for what did he claim?

Thus the sentence becomes:

Turn-of-the-century magician Harry Houdini claimed, for his famous water-torture cell trick, to be able to hold his breath for more than three minutes. (option D)

Wow I think I wrote the question in the wrong place

Thank you for the time, I will try to figure out what I wanted to ask and where! Sorry! :X

Straight D - Correct usage is "Claimed to be"