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555-605 Level|   Grammatical/Rhetorical Construction|   Parallelism|   Verb Tense/Form|                              
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According to scientists who monitored its path, an expanding cloud 31 May 2022, 05:34
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dcoolguy
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dcoolguy
Hello experts,

Many people are rejecting choice B on the basis of pronoun ambiguity ???it??? .
I think its clearly referring to subject of first clause and is not ambiguous.

Right ?

Hello dcoolguy,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, we agree we with you; there does not seem to be any pronoun ambiguity regarding the use of "it" in the sentence formed by Option B, especially as the non-underlined portion already uses "its" to refer to the "cloud".

The primary error in Option B is that it alters the meaning of the sentence through the phrase "and it brightened the Northern Lights and also possibly knocked"; the construction of this phrase incorrectly implies that the cloud of particles triggered a large storm in the magnetic field that surrounds Earth, and as a separate action, brightened the Northern Lights and possibly knocked out a communications satellite; the intended meaning is that the cloud of particles triggered a large storm in the magnetic field that surrounds Earth, and as a result, brightened the Northern Lights and possibly knocked out a communications satellite.

We hope this helps.
All the best!

Experts' Global Team
'

Thanks,
I have one more doubt,
I read the first post of this question and the author reasons-(please have a look, since I can’t create a new post)
That D and E can be eliminated because“ magnetic field is in the Earth”, hence scientist are tracking expanding cloud not storm??
I don’t understand. -

I eliminated on the basis of original choice. I thought what original choice says is true.
But thats not the right way. Whats the correct way to eliminate D and E.

Thanks. "
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Hello dcoolguy,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, regarding the meaning error in Options D and E, both answer choices incorrectly use "According to scientists who monitored its path" to modify "a large storm in the magnetic field that surrounds Earth", incorrectly implying that the scientists monitored the storm; the intended meaning is that the scientists monitored the cloud of energized particles; please remember, in a “phrase + comma + noun” construction, the phrase must correctly modify the noun

To understand the concept of "Phrase Comma Subject" and "Subject Comma Phrase " on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~1 minute):



All the best!
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According to scientists who monitored its path, an expanding cloud 31 May 2022, 19:42
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AjiteshArun
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I eliminated option C because I thought there was a modifier error:

(C) an expanding cloud of energized particles ejected from the Sun recently triggered a large storm in the magnetic field that surrounds Earth, brightening the Northern Lights and possibly knocking

- Was it ejected recently?
- Or was it triggered recently?

Please can someone explain if I have done something wrong?

Thanks!
Hi clover1987,

By modifier, do you mean the ejected/triggered split or are you referring to recently? We can start with triggered, which is the main verb here. We cannot assume that it is a (passive) participle modifier.

... an expanding cloud of energized particles ejected from the Sun recently triggered a large storm in the magnetic field that surrounds Earth...

1. If triggered were a modifier, we would not have been able to add "a large storm..." (an object, something that tells us what was triggered) after it.

A partial meltdown triggered by a faulty reactor design... ← Triggered is a participle here. Because it is passive, there is no "what it triggered" after it. Also, this is not a complete sentence.
A faulty reactor design triggered a partial meltdown. ← Triggered is a complete (active) verb here. Given this meaning of triggered (triggered is transitive here), we must add a "what it triggered" after it. This is a complete sentence.

2. Similarly, because it is unlikely that the cloud (or particles) ejected like a pilot, we can assume that ejected is passive in this sentence.

an expanding cloud of energized particles ejected from the Sun ~ an expanding cloud of energized particles that was ejected from the Sun (was for cloud, were if the reference is to particles)

Because (1) effectively means that triggered must be a verb, and (2) tells us that ejected cannot be a verb, we can be absolutely sure that triggered combines with cloud to create a subject-verb combination.

All of this is to say that we should not ask "was it triggered", because the cloud was not triggered. Instead, the cloud triggered something else (a large storm).

Now, if you were worried about the recently, my guess is that recently is meant to describe triggered, because it is not very close to ejected. The thing to keep in mind here though, is that it (recently) introduces a little bit of ambiguity in the sentence. That is all. This is not a major issue, and option C is still much better than the other options.
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Hello AjiteshArun

My issue is with D and E

People are rejecting D and E on the basis of “intended meaning”. how to know that intended meaning is - scientist monitored clouds not storm?
How to know whats intended and what’s not, when both makes sense. Scientist can monitor path of a storm, there is nothing wrong about it.

Why exactly is “scientist monitoring path of storm” wrong?

Posted from my mobile device
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According to scientists who monitored its path, an expanding cloud 31 May 2022, 20:35
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dcoolguy
Hello AjiteshArun

My issue is with D and E

People are rejecting D and E on the basis of “intended meaning”. how to know that intended meaning is - scientist monitored clouds not storm?
How to know whats intended and what’s not, when both makes sense. Scientist can monitor path of a storm, there is nothing wrong about it.

Why exactly is “scientist monitoring path of storm” wrong?
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Hi dcoolguy,

In some cases, we can't say for sure what the intended meaning is. This is not unexpected, and it happens to every test taker at some point. The important point is that we continue looking for other ways to remove those options, and the GMAT gives us at least 3 really easy ways to remove the last two options if we don't want to force the cloud/storm meaning call.

1. Options D and E drop ejected from the Sun entirely: For some reason, both these options fail to mention that the cloud was "ejected from the Sun". As in, that piece of information is just gone, which means that we're now looking at some random expanding cloud of energized particles (we don't know where it came from). This loss of meaning is, I think, a major problem in both these options.

2. Options D and E use an unnecessary it: This it doesn't help these options. In fact. it just introduces additional ambiguity.

3. Brightening... and possibly knocking is much shorter than the structures in options D and E.
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According to scientists who monitored its path, an expanding cloud 31 May 2022, 21:32
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dcoolguy

I think AjiteshArun makes some excellent points above. I'll add that "it" in D and E is more than unnecessary; it makes the two options immediately wrong. I wouldn't bother to consider meaning in these choices because I'd already have knocked them out on an initial scan. The clause "it knocked . . . " can't be parallel to either "brightened" or "brightening."

I agree that some have been too quick to assume that the intended meaning is clear. Having said that, if the first 3 choices all convey the same meaning AND if that meaning is not clearly flawed, we're not likely to see a new meaning show up as correct. It's not quite as simple as majority rule or "stick with the meaning of A"--both of those can go wrong--but we are trying to use all 5 choices to see what the intended meaning is, and that's little reason to depart from the meaning in A-C. On examination, it makes more sense, and then when you notice that D-E lose the part about the Sun, you can be quite confident that the meaning is off.
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According to scientists who monitored its path, an expanding cloud 10 Jun 2022, 00:32
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This is a case of cause and effect.

We need -ing modifiers and not -ed modifiers (past participles show intention but in this case, brightening and knocking are not intentional)

A. Brightened - wrong
B. Brightened - wrong
D. Brightened - wrong
E. Knocked - wrong
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According to scientists who monitored its path, an expanding cloud 03 Sep 2022, 12:31
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Hi experts,

I read this question many times/the explanations on GMATCLUB. Unfortunately, I am still having a hard time wrapping my head around the subjecting being a large storm or an expanding cloud of energized particles... isolating this issue from the other flaws in the incorrect answer choices. I like Choice D except for the "it" at the end. Any further clarification on my conundrum would be greatly appreciated. Many thanks!
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According to scientists who monitored its path, an expanding cloud 15 May 2023, 07:34
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Easiest way to solve this question is to look at the end. Only C is parallel
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According to scientists who monitored its path, an expanding cloud 25 Jul 2023, 23:10
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I wonder how GMAT treats information deleted from choices, for e.g. D and E, Completely remove "from the sun"? - The OG Explanation or D does say "The info. that the cloud particles were from the sun is lost", so it does seem they care about it.

But I would love it if experts can weigh in, and share how GMAT treats other similar sentences and if missing info is a red flag or if it can be acceptable under the right circumstances.

KarishmaB GMATNinja GMATNinjaTwo AndrewN, AjiteshArun MartyTargetTestPrep

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According to scientists who monitored its path, an expanding cloud 26 Jul 2023, 04:08
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TargetMBA007
I wonder how GMAT treats information deleted from choices, for e.g. D and E, Completely remove "from the sun"? - The OG Explanation or D does say "The info. that the cloud particles were from the sun is lost", so it does seem they care about it.

But I would love it if experts can weigh in, and share how GMAT treats other similar sentences and if missing info is a red flag or if it can be acceptable under the right circumstances.

Thanks
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Hello, TargetMBA007. Missing information is not necessarily a red flag. It depends on the context of the sentence. I think Ajitesh has done a fine job explaining above, in this post, why the information about the Sun seems important to the sentence at hand. As for other sentences, I have written a lengthy post on as _____ as comparisons in which I discuss the issue. Here is a snippet from the end:

AndrewN
Most importantly, trust your process and the context of the sentence at hand, not some hard-and-fast rule that you read in a forum or saw in a YouTube tutorial. First, what is the comparison? Second, if there are missing words, what reasonable interpretation can you supply? I would suggest you get rid of any options on grounds that you feel more confident assessing before you turn to anything else. When you work with just what is left, you start to see matters in a different light.
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Circling back to the sentence in this thread, you should be asking yourself whether, in answer choices (D) and (E), you could reasonably supply the modifier ejected from the Sun if you were unaware of it from the other sentences, and also whether the sentence makes sense without such information. I will add another vote in favor of supplying the missing information.

Good luck with your studies.

- Andrew
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According to scientists who monitored its path, an expanding cloud 26 Jul 2023, 21:27
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Thanks AndrewN - That is very helpful.
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