Events & Promotions
|
|
GMAT Club Daily Prep
Thank you for using the timer - this advanced tool can estimate your performance and suggest more practice questions. We have subscribed you to Daily Prep Questions via email.
Customized
for You
Track
Your Progress
Practice
Pays
Not interested in getting valuable practice questions and articles delivered to your email? No problem, unsubscribe here.
Nov 1811:00 AM PST
-12:00 PM PST
Join us in a live GMAT practice session and solve 30 challenging GMAT questions with other test takers in timed conditions, covering GMAT Quant, Data Sufficiency, Data Insights, Reading Comprehension, and Critical Reasoning questions.
Nov 2211:00 AM IST
-01:00 PM IST
Do RC/MSR passages scare you? e-GMAT is conducting a masterclass to help you learn – Learn effective reading strategies Tackle difficult RC & MSR with confidence Excel in timed test environment- Nov 23
11:00 AM IST
-01:00 PM IST
Attend this free GMAT Algebra Webinar and learn how to master the most challenging Inequalities and Absolute Value problems with ease. 
Nov 2510:00 AM EST
-11:00 AM EST
Prefer video-based learning? The Target Test Prep OnDemand course is a one-of-a-kind video masterclass featuring 400 hours of lecture-style teaching by Scott Woodbury-Stewart, founder of Target Test Prep and one of the most accomplished GMAT instructors.
17 Dec 2020, 07:00
Kudos
Bookmarks
E
Be sure to select an answer first to save it in the Error Log before revealing the correct answer (OA)!
Difficulty:
45%
(medium)
Question Stats:
67% (01:57) correct
33%
(01:54)
wrong
based on 386
sessions
History
Date
Time
Result
Not Attempted Yet
12 Days of Christmas GMAT Competition with Lots of Fun
By the eighteenth century, Ossian, a legendary Scottish poet and storyteller from the third century, became as revered and mythical of a literary figure as Homer or Dante, and the French general Napoleon Bonaparte so admired the poems of the Scottish bard to where he commissioned two paintings to be hung in his summer palace.
(A) became as revered and mythical of a literary figure as Homer or Dante, and the French general Napoleon Bonaparte so admired the poems of the Scottish bard to where
(B) became as revered and mythical a literary figure as Homer, Dante, and the French general Napoleon Bonaparte, who admired the poems of the Scottish bard so that
(C) had become as revered and mythical of a literary figure as Homer or Dante, and the French general Napoleon Bonaparte admired the poems of the Scottish bard, so
(D) had become as revered and mythical of a literary figure as Homer, Dante, and the French general Napoleon Bonaparte, who so admired the poems of the Scottish bard that
(E) had become as revered and mythical a literary figure as Homer or Dante, and the French general Napoleon Bonaparte so admired the poems of the Scottish bard that
V34-09
By the eighteenth century, Ossian, a legendary Scottish poet and storyteller from the third century, became as revered and mythical of a literary figure as Homer or Dante, and the French general Napoleon Bonaparte so admired the poems of the Scottish bard to where he commissioned two paintings to be hung in his summer palace.
(A) became as revered and mythical of a literary figure as Homer or Dante, and the French general Napoleon Bonaparte so admired the poems of the Scottish bard to where
(B) became as revered and mythical a literary figure as Homer, Dante, and the French general Napoleon Bonaparte, who admired the poems of the Scottish bard so that
(C) had become as revered and mythical of a literary figure as Homer or Dante, and the French general Napoleon Bonaparte admired the poems of the Scottish bard, so
(D) had become as revered and mythical of a literary figure as Homer, Dante, and the French general Napoleon Bonaparte, who so admired the poems of the Scottish bard that
(E) had become as revered and mythical a literary figure as Homer or Dante, and the French general Napoleon Bonaparte so admired the poems of the Scottish bard that
V34-09
17 Dec 2020, 17:07
Kudos
Bookmarks
OFFICIAL EXPLANATION
Happy fourth... day of the competition, that is. We have another SC question before us; so far, these have proved devilishly difficult for the group on the whole. I did not write the questions with trickery in mind. Rather, I was hoping to craft engaging sentences that provided not just one, but a few talking points, the way a real GMAT™ question does. Are you ready to get to the bottom of another one?
The second part of the original sentence that is off is the inclusion of of within a comparison, one that follows a basic as _____ a [noun 1] as [noun 2]. Sure, native speakers sometimes speak this way, so the sound test might not work against this one (not that you should be using such a method to eliminate answers), but of is a completely superfluous and unidiomatic element.
Finally, the degree to which Napoleon admired the poems also follows a certain idiomatic construct: so _____ that. Again, some people in casual conversation might indicate the extent of something by dropping in to where, but that will not fly here.
With three compelling reasons to eliminate (A), we can safely check for better answers ahead.
1) the French general Napoleon Bonaparte admired the poems of the Scottish bard
2) so he commissioned two paintings to be hung in his summer palace
Did you catch it? The issue is subtle, but you should be wondering, What does admiring poems have to do with commissioning paintings to be hung? Paintings of what? I did not mark the conjunction in red because so is grammatically sound. But in terms of conveyed meaning, this sentence is unclear. It could mean the same as what the original sentence lays out, but it could also be presenting two separate pieces of information and be tying them together clumsily with so. All things considered, this cannot be our answer.
I hope you enjoyed this one. As always, good luck with your studies.
- Andrew
Happy fourth... day of the competition, that is. We have another SC question before us; so far, these have proved devilishly difficult for the group on the whole. I did not write the questions with trickery in mind. Rather, I was hoping to craft engaging sentences that provided not just one, but a few talking points, the way a real GMAT™ question does. Are you ready to get to the bottom of another one?
Quote:
Right out of the gates, we encounter a crucial part of the sentence, and the simple past became does not agree with the surrounding contextual clues, namely the opening phrase, which references the eighteenth century through a progressive by instead of a moment-in-time in, and the appositive phrase, which tells us that Ossian lived in the third century. That is, we find it difficult to resolve such conflicting temporal information without pausing—someone from the third century became celebrated by the eighteenth, fifteen hundred years later.
The second part of the original sentence that is off is the inclusion of of within a comparison, one that follows a basic as _____ a [noun 1] as [noun 2]. Sure, native speakers sometimes speak this way, so the sound test might not work against this one (not that you should be using such a method to eliminate answers), but of is a completely superfluous and unidiomatic element.
Finally, the degree to which Napoleon admired the poems also follows a certain idiomatic construct: so _____ that. Again, some people in casual conversation might indicate the extent of something by dropping in to where, but that will not fly here.
With three compelling reasons to eliminate (A), we can safely check for better answers ahead.
Quote:
The first issue is no different from before, but the second is where things get interesting. Notice that Homer and Dante are now mentioned as literary figures one and two in a series that ends with the French general Napoleon Bonaparte. A knowledge of history is not required to ascertain whether Napoleon was a revered and mythical poet: he is described as a general instead (not a warrior poet either, for you fans of Braveheart out there). This is a serious distortion of the logical meaning of the sentence, one that cannot be overlooked. Just in case you missed that one, though, there is a third issue that we can use to argue against (B). By moving so, the extent-to-which marker turns into an explanatory marker instead, and who admired... so that is not a correct way to express that the general admired some poems to the extent that he ordered something. One, two, three strikes you're out.
Quote:
First off, notice that the issue with became has now been rectified with a past perfect had become. The change correctly bridges the time gap between the third and eighteenth centuries, as presented in the sentence. We are no longer talking about two distinct periods in time, but about all the time that passed between them, enough time to allow the reputation of Ossian to grow. The same problem from (A) persists with the superfluous of, however. There is simply no way to justify its inclusion. Finally, an ambiguous logical disconnect occurs at the tail-end of the sentence by (once again) shifting the position of so. That is, by using so as a conjunction to join two independent clauses, the sentence now outlines a causal relationship, only this one does not quite add up in a clearcut manner:
1) the French general Napoleon Bonaparte admired the poems of the Scottish bard
2) so he commissioned two paintings to be hung in his summer palace
Did you catch it? The issue is subtle, but you should be wondering, What does admiring poems have to do with commissioning paintings to be hung? Paintings of what? I did not mark the conjunction in red because so is grammatically sound. But in terms of conveyed meaning, this sentence is unclear. It could mean the same as what the original sentence lays out, but it could also be presenting two separate pieces of information and be tying them together clumsily with so. All things considered, this cannot be our answer.
Quote:
There is nothing new here to discuss, in terms of the problematic elements that allow us to eliminate this answer choice. All that I will add is that the correct idiom so _____ that appears at the end of the underlined portion. Sometimes you can lean on wrong answers to point you in the right direction, so do not be too quick to completely write off an answer choice.
Quote:
All the issues from earlier have been fixed. Became has morphed into had become; the comparison drops the unnecessary of and does not include the general himself; the so _____ that idiom is correctly employed; and, most importantly, the meaning of the sentence is clear: Napoleon admired the poems of Ossian so much that he, the general, commissioned two paintings, presumably of the bard instead of poems, to be hung in his summer palace. This is the best answer of the lot.
I hope you enjoyed this one. As always, good luck with your studies.
- Andrew
General Discussion
17 Dec 2020, 07:09
Kudos
Bookmarks
IMO E
By the eighteenth century, Ossian, a legendary Scottish poet and storyteller from the third century, became as revered and mythical of a literary figure as Homer or Dante, and the French general Napoleon Bonaparte so admired the poems of the Scottish bard to where he commissioned two paintings to be hung in his summer palace.
(A) became as revered and mythical of a literary figure as Homer or Dante, and the French general Napoleon Bonaparte so admired the poems of the Scottish bard to where
(B) became as revered and mythical a literary figure as Homer, Dante, and the French general Napoleon Bonaparte, who admired the poems of the Scottish bardso that
(C) had become as revered and mythical of a literary figure as Homer or Dante, and the French general Napoleon Bonaparte admired the poems of the Scottish bard, so
(D) had become as revered and mythical of a literary figure as Homer, Dante, and the French general Napoleon Bonaparte, who so admired the poems of the Scottish bard that
(E) had become as revered and mythical a literary figure as Homer or Dante, and the French general Napoleon Bonaparte so admired the poems of the Scottish bard that
By the eighteenth century, Ossian, a legendary Scottish poet and storyteller from the third century, became as revered and mythical of a literary figure as Homer or Dante, and the French general Napoleon Bonaparte so admired the poems of the Scottish bard to where he commissioned two paintings to be hung in his summer palace.
(A) became as revered and
(B) became as revered and mythical a literary figure as Homer, Dante, and the French general Napoleon Bonaparte, who admired the poems of the Scottish bard
(C) had become as revered and
(D) had become as revered and
(E) had become as revered and mythical a literary figure as Homer or Dante, and the French general Napoleon Bonaparte so admired the poems of the Scottish bard that
