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avaneeshvyas
After working for two hours, the essay started to take shape, and he began to hope that he might finish before the deadline.


A. After working for two hours, the essay started to take shape, and he began to hope
B. When the essay started to take shape after he had worked on it for two hours, he began to hope
C. When the essay started to take shape after he had worked on it for two hours, he begun to hope
D. When the essay started to take shape after working on it for two hours, he began to hope
E. After working for two hours, the student's essay started to take shape, and he began to hope


Please explain why can't A be the right choice.....

misplaced modifier in A suggests that essay started to take shape after working for 2 hours...
B is free of grammatical and logical errors.
C has 'he begun to hope' incorrect tense
D is illogical. has essay started to take shape after working on something? what is 'it'?
E again has misplaced modifier. It suggests that Student's essay, after working for 2 hours, started to take shape.

Ans B it is.


But then essay did start taking shape after 2 hours of work on it......isn't it so? Please help me understand the mistake Ï am making....
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avaneeshvyas
Vips0000
avaneeshvyas
After working for two hours, the essay started to take shape, and he began to hope that he might finish before the deadline.


A. After working for two hours, the essay started to take shape, and he began to hope
B. When the essay started to take shape after he had worked on it for two hours, he began to hope
C. When the essay started to take shape after he had worked on it for two hours, he begun to hope
D. When the essay started to take shape after working on it for two hours, he began to hope
E. After working for two hours, the student's essay started to take shape, and he began to hope


Please explain why can't A be the right choice.....

misplaced modifier in A suggests that essay started to take shape after working for 2 hours...
B is free of grammatical and logical errors.
C has 'he begun to hope' incorrect tense
D is illogical. has essay started to take shape after working on something? what is 'it'?
E again has misplaced modifier. It suggests that Student's essay, after working for 2 hours, started to take shape.

Ans B it is.


But then essay did start taking shape after 2 hours of work on it......isn't it so? Please help me understand the mistake Ï am making....
who was working?
essays were working for 2 hours or 'he' was working on essay?
when you say:
After working for two hours, the essay .....
the modifier 'After working for two hours' modified the first word after comma which is the essay. Suggesting that essay was working. Hence incorrect.
Hope it helps.
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Interesting problem. I would probably get lucky by picking B over D here on intuition, but maybe not. A and E are out for sounding as though the the essay is working in the stockyards or somethign, btw.
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Abhishek009
After working for two hours, the essay started to take shape, and he began to hope that he might finish before the deadline.

A. After working for two hours, the essay started to take shape, and he began to hope
B. When the essay started to take shape after he had worked on it for two hours, he began to hope
C. When the essay started to take shape after he had worked on it for two hours, he begun to hope
D. When the essay started to take shape after working on it for two hours, he began to hope
E. After working for two hours, the student's essay started to take shape, and he began to hope

B

Source : majortests.com

We need someone who is working on the essay.
Hence we can easily remove the options A, D and E

Between B and C, begun is not the correct form of verb here.
We need a simple past tense: began
Because he started to hope after a previous event (started essays)

Hence The Correct Option: B

NOTE: Always keep in mind. If an action is happening, try to find out who is doing the action.
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No antecedent of "he" at all, so all options is not convincing
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Can pronoun be used in a GMAT SC without any antecedent?
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Nooo, we definitely can't use "he" without an antecedent on the GMAT. B is the only answer that isn't grammatically wrong, and this would be a fine sentence in the context of a larger piece of writing (in which we would presumably know who "he" is), but this would never fly on the GMAT.
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As DmitryFarber has pointed out, I guess antecedents are a must..gmat would still prefer an ambiguous antecedent case rather than just no antecedent.

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is option d eliminated on the basis of tense or something else? I felt past perfect should be used.
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