After more than four decades of research and development, a new type o

Dear Friends,

Here is a detailed explanation to this question-
Concepts tested here: Grammatical Construction + Parallelism + Idioms + Awkwardness/Redundancy

• “capability + to” is the preferred construction for referring to the nature of the ability, and “capability + of” is used to refer to the entity that possesses the ability.
• Any elements linked by a conjunction ("or" in this case) must be parallel.
• Information vital to the core meaning of the sentence cannot be placed between commas.

A: Correct. This answer choice maintains parallelism between "propel aircraft anywhere in the world within two hours" and "help boost cargoes into space at significantly lower costs than current methods permit". Further, Option A avoids the idiom error seen in Option B, as it does not use the word "capability". Additionally, Option A avoids the grammatical construction error seen in Option C, as it places no information between commas. Besides, Option A is free of any awkwardness or redundancy.

B: This answer choice uses the construction "capability + of" to refer to the nature of the ability; remember, “capability + to” is the preferred construction for referring to the nature of the ability, and “capability + of” is used to refer to the entity that possesses the ability. Further, Option B uses the needlessly wordy and redundant phrase "could eventually have the capability", leading to awkwardness and redundancy.

C: This answer choice incorrectly places information vital to the core meaning of the sentence - the fact that the jet engine could eventually propel aircraft anywhere in the world within two hours - between commas; remember, information vital to the core meaning of the sentence cannot be placed between commas. Further, Option C fails to maintain parallelism between "propel aircraft anywhere in the world within two hours" and "helping boost cargoes into space at significantly lower costs than current methods permit"; remember, any elements linked by a conjunction ("or" in this case) must be parallel.

D: This answer choice fails to maintain parallelism between "propel aircraft anywhere in the world within two hours" and "helping boost cargoes into space at significantly lower costs than current methods permit"; remember, any elements linked by a conjunction ("or" in this case) must be parallel. Further, Option D uses the needlessly wordy construction "and it eventually could propel aircraft", leading to awkwardness and redundancy.

E: This answer choice uses the needlessly wordy and redundant phrase "and it could eventually have the capability", leading to awkwardness and redundancy.

Hence, A is the best answer choice.

To understand the concept of "Extra Information Between Commas" on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~2 minutes):



All the best!
Experts' Global Team

Frankly speaking, this is a tricky question that got me stuck on A or E. I finally decided to choose E because of the verb meaning principle which is correctly employed in E as opposed to A. A sounds very attractive, grammmatically correct and is less wordier than E but the there is a subtle difference in the meaning of the verb as it doesn't make sense. A refers to the testing of the jet engine that could propel the aircraft anywhere in the world. Rather its the capability of the jet engine that could propel the aircraft anywhere in the world.

SAUMYA12



TO ME .....THE PORTION......."TESTED THAT COULD EVENTUALLY PROPEL" ......APPEARED AMBIGUOUS ....WHAT COULD " THAT" MEAN.....ie WHAT COULD PROPEL.....THAT SHOULD FOLLOW IMMEDIATELY AFTER WHAT IT MODIFIES....

Answer A is perfect. please find the attached image ... for verification.

https://i.imgur.com/xUr3hAk.jpg

A is correct because that can modify the closest noun which is jet engine as tested is verb here. also in E could and capability of is redundant.

I hope this makes everything clear.

I think I deserve kudos if this is helping you

Yes, and adding to this, that is actually very flexible and can also modify the noun that is not nearest to that. For example, in the sentence below:

Marconi conceived of the radio as a tool for private conversation that could substitute for the telephone; instead, it has become precisely the opposite, a tool for communicating with a large, public audience.

While conversation is the nearest noun, that actually modifies tool here.

p.s. Our book SC Nirvana discusses this topic of what that modifies, in significant detail. If you can PM you email, I can send you the corresponding section.

This one is confirmed-gmat-prep problem.

As we know that if modifier is quite long (as Ron says 6 miles long) then we can place verb before modifier to keep verb close to the subject. Definitely all other choice are either awkward or wordy and even I felt that no choice is correct, but now A makes sense after reading discussion on mgmat forum.

https://www.manhattangmat.com/forums/aft ... t3171.html

The OA was (A), but I chose (E) because the engine may eventually have the ability to propel, not eventually propel (as option (A) suggests). I also agree with the explanation that shekharvineet gave! Thoughts?

"Can" and "have the capability" are redundant.

I can do so... correct.
I have the capability to do so...... correct
I can have the capability to do so.... redundant.

Therefore E is wrong ("could" here is the hypothetical case of "can").

I totally agree, and I find that structure to be awkward and illogical. The following alternative structures are better.

After more than four decades of research and development, being tested is a new type of jet engine that could eventually propel aircraft anywhere in the world within two hours or help boost cargoes into space at significantly lower costs than current methods permit.

After more than four decades of research and development, a new type of jet engine that could eventually propel aircraft anywhere in the world within two hours or help boost cargoes into space at significantly lower costs than current methods permit is being tested.

Regardless of whether one could debate that the structure is OK, GMAC should not have used such an illogical, awkward, unfamiliar, and debatably incorrect structure in an OA. The question should have been edited or thrown out.

Before seeing this question, I would always think that "that" refers to immediate noun.
In this question, noun, "the jet engine", is far away from that. Moreover, "A jet engine is being tested" is in passive voice.
So, this question doesn't seem like GMAT question.
I understood parallelism error. My doubt is that can GMAT put such question in which one error is corrected and other is ignored?

Please throw light on this doubt.

First, let's address the use of the passive voice.

In many cases the use of the passive voice is clearly sub optimal. When such sentences are presented in GMAT Sentence Correction questions, the correct answers to the questions will be ones that involve use of the active voice rather than use of the passive voice. However, while it is the case that in most cases, use of the active voice will result in a version better than one in which the passive voice is used, the use of the passive voice makes sense in some cases, and, therefore, it is not the case that one can always consider the use of the passive voice to be an error in a Sentence Correction question. Sometimes, the correct answer to a GMAT Sentence Correction question will involve the use of the passive voice.

So, the use of the passive voice in the OA to this question does not constitute an error.

Now let's address the separation of "that" from the noun to which it refers, which is "engine".

It is not entirely correct to say that a restrictive modifier always directly follows that noun that it modifies. Consider the following example:

The house near the center of town that Jim wanted to buy is no longer available.

In the above example, it is clear that Jim didn't want to buy the center of town or the town, he wanted to buy the house. However, the restrictive modifier, "that Jim wanted to buy" is separated from "house" by another modifier, "near the center of town".

This separation is fine, and a sentence structured in this way would be considered correct were it to appear in a Sentence Correction question. As a matter of fact, the entire structure, "house near the center of town", could be considered a noun, in which case, the restrictive modifier, "that Jim wanted to buy" would directly follow the noun that it modifies, "house near the center of town."

However, in the question posted in this thread, we don't have such a situation, we have a noun, "jet engine", followed by a verb, "is being tested", followed by a modifier, "that could eventually propel ..."

As I said in an earlier post, I find this structure to be illogical and awkward, one could only hope that you wouldn't see such a structure in any other practice question or in any question that you see on the GMAT. However, you might see it. In fact, here it is again in the OA to this question from the Official Guide, https://gmatclub.com/forum/gusty-wester ... 42543.html.

The story out there is that, when a sentence includes a relative clause modifier that is long, as is the modifier in the sentence in the question that is the topic of this thread, a verb in the sentence may correctly come between the modifier and the antecedent of the pronoun that appears at the beginning of the modifier, in order to make identifying the subject-verb relationship easy for a reader.

Therefore, while I personally still do not like this structure, and, while I find that including it in GMAT Sentence Correction questions does not make sense, you may want to keep it in mind on the off chance that you see it in a Sentence Correction question on the actual GMAT.

egmat , GMATNinja
Firstly Can u please let me know the Subject Verb pairs in this sentence (choice A).
Also if the choice B had 'to propel ' instead of 'of propelling' would the sentence be correct. Please highlight the subject verb pairs for this sentence as well.

Thank you.

Here's (A) again:


The two verbs in red correspond to the subject in blue. ("That," technically the subject of the clause, refers to "jet engine.") So the jet engine could propel aircraft or help boost cargoes into space. Perfectly logical.

As for (B), sure, if we changed "of propelling" to "to propel" you'd address the parallel construction issue, but you'd still have two problems. First, "capability to propel" is not an ideal idiom, and second, the phrase "could eventually have the capability to propel" contains a redundancy, since the word "could" already implies a capability. (Notice that (A) leaves out "capability" altogether.) So the adjustment would make (B) less bad, but still an inferior alternative to (A).

I hope that helps!

a new type of jet engine is being tested that could eventually propel aircraft anywhere in the world within two hours or help.

I understand that the word "that" can modify a far away noun; however, I thought the rule is "that" cannot jump over a verb, for example "is being tested" to modify "type".
This would indicate "that clause" is similar to a "noun phrase modifier", which has almost no restriction on what it can modify.

The structure in the OA is rather uncommon, but it occasionally appears in SC questions.

Here's another example:

An experienced analyst is coming who should be able to figure out what's going on.

In the above sentence, "who" jumps "is coming" to refer to "analyst."

According to a GMAC representative, it's OK for a relative clause to jump the main verb to modify a noun if the main verb is of one of certain types, verbs that express arrival, coming into being, or development.

Thanks!!! I really appreciate your clarification.

"An experienced analyst is coming who should be able to figure out what's going on."
I guess it would be wordy and difficult to understand if the sentence was:

An experienced analyst who should be able to figure out what's going on is coming. <---- I am assuming this answer lacks flow and makes the reader confused on what the subject of sentence is.

I don't find your example that bad, and it certainly would not be considered clearly incorrect, but yes, putting the verb close to the subject, rather than all the way at the end, can make a sentence easier to read.

Also, keep in mind the following. Sentence Correction question writers use uncommon or odd sounding structures in official answers to obscure the fact that the answers are correct. So, probably, part of the reason for using the subject-verb-relative clause structure in the correct answer to this question is to confuse test-takers into thinking that the correct answer is not correct.