Navaneethcs wrote:
I have a question on a slightly different topic. If we look at this question
hereAs per the solution to the above question,
'phosphate amount that' - here "that" modifies the amount (correct!)
But,
'amount of phosphates that' - here "that" modifies phosphates. (wrong)
Hence I crossed out A,D,E, and chose B. Please can someone throw some light on this?
GMATNinja ExpertsGlobal5 egmat VeritasPrepRon EducationAisleDon't bother about the "the reduction..." question. "That" has very versatile usage and can modify preceding noun / noun phrase or even faraway noun. Almost all question on GMAT will follow this rule.
If you really wanna split hair on this one, then here you go.
Think of these sentences:
ST1: The fourth car from left that is red in color is mine.
Vs.
ST2: The fourth car that is red in color from left is mine.
Here there's a subtle difference but a big meaning ambiguity.
In st1: there could be 10 cars of different color, each positioned from 1-10. Now let's say red cars occupy even position viz 2 4 6 8 10. As per st1, the red color would be the car standing at position 8. Think about it and you will get the real essence about restrictive nature of that
In St2: as per this sentence, the car positioned at no. 4 will be the one. Apart from positioning difference, this car will be painted in red from left and could be yellow, black, limegreen , etc from right side."That" becomes much more restrictive for positioning In St2 compared with St1.
Try to see the tagged question from this angle.Option B has no grammatical mistake, it's as same as option E, except the punch / thrust of restrictiveness by the placement of that makes it a better choice. This question could be an example of rhetorical questions that come in GMAT.
Again I am not sure GMAT will ever ask ask to spot such nuances. Doesn't seem to be an offical question ?
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