According to many military historians, Germany’s conquest of the mount

Question

According to many military historians, Germany’s conquest of the mountainous island of Navarone in the Aegean Sea was of utmost military importance throughout the Second World War because  they realized that, if they did not exploit its strategic location, their survival against the indomitable naval might of the British would always be in peril.

(A) they realized that, if they did not exploit its strategic location, their survival against the indomitable naval might of the British would always be in peril.
 
(B) it realized that, if it did not exploit the island’s strategic location, Germany’s survival against the indomitable naval might of the British would always be in peril.
 
(C) the nation’s generals realized that, if Navarone’s strategic location was not exploited, Germany’s survival against the indomitable naval might of the British was always in peril.
 
(D) they realized that, if Navarone’s strategic location was not exploited, Germany’s survival against the indomitable naval might of the British was always in peril.
 
(E) the nation’s generals realized that, if they did not exploit Navarone’s strategic location, Germany’s survival against the indomitable naval might of the British would always be in peril.

Verbal Question of The Day: Day 20: Sentence Correction 
 Subscribe to GMAT Question of the Day:   E-mail  |  RSS 
 For All QOTD Questions  Click Here

GMATNinja · Accepted Answer

"They" and "their" can't possibly refer to "Germany's", since "Germany's" is a singular, possessive noun. So I guess "they" and "their" must refer to historians, and that makes no sense at all. Eliminate (A).

"It" has no clear antecedent here, either. "Germany's" is possessive, and the subject pronoun "it" can't refer back to a possessive antecedent. Plus, it's awfully weird to say that "Germany realized" something. (B) is gone.

I like the use of "the nation's generals", but the last chunk of the sentence is an if/then statement, and we need to use the conditional "would" instead of "was." (C) can be eliminated.

This has the same pronoun problem as (B), along with the verb form problem that appears in (C).

Much better! The verb is in the proper form, and the only pronoun in the underlined portion, "they", refers nicely back to the nation's generals. (E) is our answer.

GMATNinja · Answer

I don't think this particular construction should be a major part of your SC prep, but yes, your understanding of the various if/then cases seems to be correct. Personally, if I'm trying to internalize some rule or construction, I'd produce some specific examples that I could quickly eyeball to refresh my memory. 1) If I fall down the stairs, I will spill my cocktail. 2) If I bought a burrito from that unlicensed food truck, I would likely experience unpleasant indigestion. 3) If I had paid my taxes, I wouldn't have ended up sharing a cell with Tim, whose face tattoo was oddly beguiling. And now, I'm just having fun with sentences.

So yes, you're on the right track, but I would argue that it's a relatively minor issue on the GMAT. I hope this helps!

namita_am · Answer

I chose C

I was making a lot of mistakes whenever there is if-then in the middle of some big sentence or in complex sentences. I have created a sheet for myself which has common scenarios of if-then usage and their following clause. GMATNinja could you please help me validate these and is the way to go while handling if-thens. With me, whenever the sentence correction question is a long long sentence, I take a lot of time to read and understand. If clause has resent tense---> The Main clause will have the present tense or future tense depending on the context. If clause has present continuous/present perfect----> Main clause will have simple future. (will/shall) If clause has past tense/past continuous----> could/should/would (Like the one in the question) If clause has past perfect-----> could have /would have / might have.

thangvietnam · Answer

there is also a pattern

if do,,, then do

if temparature is 100 C degree, water boil

this is a fact, not a condition. I know this pattern from a question in og (if they do not hold monoco...). but honestly, I do not fully understand this pattern.

so, choice C can be correct. but why choice C is wrong. because choice C shows a condition. so the pattern: " if did,,,, would do" is corect.

moreover, choice C suffer from serious meaning error,
 if Navarone’s strategic location was not exploited

this is not show who exploit. without who exploit, the meaning is not logic. C is wrong

meaning/logic error can be clear or subtle. passive voice can make logic meaning error as in this case of choice C. meaning error can be illogic meaning or unclear meaning. inclear meaning is hard to realize. but unclear meaning can be tested because we need to make clear meaning and clear sentence.

TarPhi · Answer

GMATNinja

According to many military historians, Germany’s conquest of the mountainous island of Navarone in the Aegean Sea was of utmost military importance throughout the Second World War because  they realized that, if they did not exploit its strategic location, their survival against the indomitable naval might of the British would always be in peril.

(E) the nation’s generals realized that, if they did not exploit Navarone’s strategic location, Germany’s survival against the indomitable naval might of the British would always be in peril.

How do you know that the nation's generals realised this? It could very well have been the leader's call, right? Because this information was unstated in the original question, I was hesitant to go with it.

GMATNinja · Answer

What "leader(s)"? This sentence doesn't mention any leaders, and we can't refer to something that isn't there! The following sentence is wrong for the same reason:

"Whenever I go to the bank, they offer me a lollipop." --> Who does "they" refer to? Sure, we can fill in the blank with something that makes sense (i.e. "bank employees"), but this sort of thing doesn't fly on the GMAT.

In choice (E), "they" can only refer to a plural noun, and it is obvious that "they" refers to the "generals", not the "historians". So (E) is okay!

itspCv2 · Answer

EEEEEhaaaa.. Let's make it simple: Marked the errors in the question stem above. A)Pronoun ambiguity: what is its referring to ? Germany's no it is island's. what is they referring to ? Historians . NO WAY. They can't be historians because the sory itself is according to Historians B) AGAIN: Pronoun ambiguity: what is it referring to ? Germany no it is island. C)WAS as marked in stem is wrong because it didn't happen. They thought it would happen D)WAS as marked in stem is wrong because it didn't happen. They thought it would happen E)Perfect with none of the above errors. Therefore ANSWER is E. EVERYTHING is FIXED in E Hope it helps Thanks

DanTe02 · Answer

GMATNinja  Oookaay so lil hesitant to ask this but whenever there's a if then construction and the if part has simple past I believe we could go two ways (simple past or could,should,would + verb) So C is saying the general realized that if we didnt exploit it then germany was definitely always in peril and E is saying yeah it could be peril in future like FOREVER . So It's rather the context right Verbal God? Unlike , few people making this a concrete rule
e.g If James was not at home ,then He was at the bar
and If James was not at home, he would be at the bar

frankgraves · Answer

Hi  GMATNinja  thank you for your explanation.
Just wondering, if answer C was changed to be like this, "(C) the nation’s generals realized that, if Navarone’s strategic location was not exploited, Germany’s survival against the indomitable naval might of the British  would always be  in peril.", would it be grammatically correct?
Thanks!

GMATNinja · Answer

"Verbal God" - Haha, if only we were omniscient when it came to GMAT SC! In reality, many of the questions we encounter on the forum make our heads spin and are extremely difficult for us to answer, but thanks for the good question, the kind words, and the laugh!

Great approach here: thinking about context and meaning is almost always better than resorting to black-and-white grammar "rules" when it comes to GMAT SC, and you seem to have the right idea: "... if Navarone’s strategic location was not exploited, Germany’s survival {...} was always in peril." - This does seem to suggest some sort of "either/or" scenario (as in your bar example): either Navarone's location was exploited OR Germany's survival was in peril. We have two distinct past actions, and only one of those past actions actually occurred. But "being in peril" is something in the future (from the generals' perspective), so we want " would be in peril" not " was in peril." Are there rules governing this sort of thing? Sure. But when you pay too much attention to "rules", it's easy to lose sight of what's really important: the meaning and the context. For a bit more on if-then cases, check out this post . Yes, changing "was always" to "would always be" would make (C) better. But in (C) we have, "if Navarone’s strategic location was not exploited" -- here we don't specify who or what is doing the exploiting. In (E), it's clear that the nation's generals are the ones doing the exploiting, so (E) would still be a bit better. In any case, our job is to select the best answer choice out of the five available options, so I wouldn't drive yourself crazy thinking about tweaked answer choices

. I hope that helps!

VerbalBot · Answer

Hello from the GMAT Club VerbalBot!

Thanks to another GMAT Club member, I have just discovered this valuable topic, yet it had no discussion for over a year. I am now bumping it up - doing my job. I think you may find it valuable (esp those replies with Kudos).

Want to see all other topics I dig out? Follow me (click follow button on profile). You will receive a summary of all topics I bump in your profile area as well as via email.

According to many military historians, Germany’s conquest of the mount

Prep Toolkit

Top 5 GMAT Debrief Videos

615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

More than Quant/Verbal Abilities: Speed vs. Accuracy

745 with Only Self-Prep and GMAT Club

From 555 to 765: 210-point Improvement

Perfect 805 Score Debrief by Julia

My Rewards

GMAT Sentence Correction (SC - EA only) Questions

According to many military historians, Germany’s conquest of the mount

Prep Toolkit

615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

More than Quant/Verbal Abilities: Speed vs. Accuracy

745 with Only Self-Prep and GMAT Club

From 555 to 765: 210-point Improvement

Perfect 805 Score Debrief by Julia

My Rewards