After a long difficult struggle leading up to the 1984 Democratic Pres

Hi honchos,

Only in this sentence is used to emphasize the minimal number of votes that was won by Walter (in spite of he consolidating a large number of votes), and not the particular event of winning a certain number of votes. Hence, it is correct to use won only 13 votes and not only won 13 votes.

Suppose if it were, that the author wanted to emphasize that of a number of possible outcomes (of consolidating votes) such as winning votes, gathering support, etc...etc..., winning votes was the only outcome that happened to manifest, then only won... would be correct. Anyways, this non-sensical and incorrect.

So won only holds.

1. only won Vs won only :
Focus is not on the particular event but on the number of votes won. So later wins.

After a long difficult struggle ..., Walter Mondale consolidated...., but he won only 13 votes.
C is the correct answer.

had a consolidation is wordy - more appropriate would be using verb consolidated

A and B - are eliminated on the following account.

D - he only won - changes meaning

E - uses lead of the nomination
+ past perfect

only one left - C, which is the correct one.

A - "though he.., but he..." is quite awkward because of the double contrast -->eliminate

Split 1- Position of Only
Only should be used to modify / emphasise the number of votes he won. "He won only 13"
only (B) and (E) emphasise the wrong thing - "won"

E also creates false parallelism "had a long difficult struggle, consolidated..., and only won"

D - Subject "walter mondale" has no verb

Therefore (C) is correct.

sir why can't we use had as according to meaning he had consolidation before the result come in the past . So had is showing which thing happened 1st isn't it? please help!!!

You can use had but the options using had have other errors.

ok if it had other error but if we loose had our intended meaning will be distorted isn't it? then it will be senseless if we won't show sequence in the sentence and according to my experience meaning is much more important than grammar.

I still do not understand why E is incorrect.
Doesn't the sentence show 2 different events?
Event 1:- before winning- had consolidated his lead of the nomination
Event 2:- won - but he won only 13

Am i going wrong somewhere in understanding?

If my understanding is correct, then what was the reason for eliminating option E.

egmat GMATNinja souvik101990

zhanbo, I would love your take on this question.

First, I eliminated A and B because an active verb (consolidate) is preferred over its noun (a consolidation).

Second, E is eliminated because the "past perfect" verb tense does not make sense here. Change the modifier to be "By 1984 Democratic Presidential Primary", and "past perfect" would be used.

Now, I did spend most of time comparing C and D.
There are two splits:
Split (1): consolidated his lead for the nomination VS. consolidated his lead in the nomination
Walter Mondale had to be nominate by his party in Primary first then went to the general election for presidency.
Evidently he had the lead before the primary, which is why he got the nomination.
After the primary, he naturally wanted to consolidate his lead (by fine-tuning or even altering his policy, enlisting more endorsement from prior rivals, nominating a VP candidate that appeals to more voters, etc. )

"For" or "In"?
This is a tough one.

For me, "lead in the nomination" felt slightly better. In the nomination, he had the lead. Now, after the nomination, he tried to consolidate the lead he maintained in the nomination.
How about "lead for the nomination"? It can also make some sense: thanks to his lead for the nomination, he secured the nomination. Now, after the nomination, he tried to consolidate the lead he had for the nomination.

I ultimately decide to make the call based solely / only on the second split, which turns out to be quite clear-cut.

Split (2): He won only 13 electoral votes VS. He only won 13 electoral votes
The placement of "Only" should be closer to the part of the sentence that the writer wants to emphasize (that it is not impressive).
(Read more at https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/educa ... d-modifier)

He won only 13 electoral votes.
"Only" emphasizes that the electoral votes he won is pathetically small. Not 232 or 132, but only 13! "Only" is aptly placed in this version.

He only won 13 electoral votes.
"Only" is placed before "won". This emphasizes that he simply / only won some votes (rather than, if there is a verb that is considered more powerful than "won", did that. Just as an example, he only won some votes as opposed to "stealing" some votes. <-- if in this society, dishonest stealing is exalted while "winning" is snubbed.)
So, expression "He only won 13 electoral votes" dismissed the result not because of "13 electoral votes" he managed to receive but because of the method ("winning").
It has the connotation that "Yeah, he did get the votes, but he got the votes only by winning, instead of "stealing", which the author thinks highly of.
That seems silly. Indeed it is. So this version is out.

That is how I ended up choosing (C): "Only" should be placed before "13 electoral votes".

Thanks zhanbo, your explanation did clear a lot of the questions I had in my head.

Thanks once again.

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.