Agatha Christie's travels with her archaeologist husband inspired her

Given Gmat itself doesn't withhold the object pronoun can't refer possessive noun ,can any expert please let me know if the original explaination for E over A still holds.

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KarishmaB egmat RonTargetTestPrep

I always falter while evaluating meaning in SC. Do you have any suggestion of improving it?

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(A) Agatha Christie's (adjective) travels with her archaeologist husband (phrase) inspired her to write several mystery novels
>> How can travel inspire? Eliminate!

(B) Agatha Christie used her travels with her archaeologist husband to inspire several mystery novels
>> This seems correct. Eg. I used my keyboard to type this doubt. So it is not keyboard by itself typing similarly it is not that travel by itself inspiring but Agatha using her travel (memory) inspired her.


(E) Agatha Christie's travels with her archaeologist husband served as inspiration for several of her mystery novels
Same logic as A + Novels cannot be inspired

Hey Rickooreo

Happy to help you with this very interesting question. It's an excellent example for the importance of meaning analysis.

But before we get to the answer choices, let's understand two important things:

1. The word "inspire" has a literary meaning as well: to give somebody the idea for something, especially something artistic or that shows imagination

The choice of decor was inspired by a trip to India.
His tragic story later inspired a Hollywood film.
Ref: https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries. ... ?q=inspire

2. The second half of the sentence gives us a crucial clue to answering this question: travelers to Egypt can still stay at the Old Cataract Hotel, the model for the hotel in one of Christie's most famous books.

Now, point 2 above tells us that "inspire" takes the meaning mentioned in point 1 above.


Coming to Answer Choice Analysis:

A: Agatha Christie's travels with her archaeologist husband inspired her to write several mystery novels
I hope you now see why A, although grammatically correct, does not agree with the second half of the sentence. The author does not wish to say that Agatha's travels with her husband inspired her to write "a large number of" novels. The author wishes to say that her travels were the source of her inspiration for many of her novels, because she has used many of those locations in her own novels. Hence, A is incorrect.

B: Agatha Christie used her travels with her archaeologist husband to inspire several mystery novels
Although a writer can use something as inspiration, the correct idiom is "to use something as inspiration for something", and not "to use something to inspire something". Moreover, the phrase 'to inspire several mystery novels' could refer to someone else's novels and not necessarily her own novels'. For these reasons, B is incorrect.

E: Agatha Christie's travels with her archaeologist husband served as inspiration for several of her mystery novels
This choice brings out the meaning correctly. "Served as an inspiration for" is the right idiom. And "for several of her mystery novels" implies that many of her novels are based on her travels with her husband.


I hope this helps improve your understanding and helps you realize the importance of meaning analysis.

Happy Learning!

Abhishek

Yes, before we jump into grammar, we must try to understand what the author is telling us by saying this sentence.

Would travel inspire someone to write mystery novels? Seems a bit unlikely. 'Travel' and visiting places doesn't have much to do with mystery stories. The 'travels' do not perform the action of 'inspiring to write many mystery novels.'
If we were given that her social work with prison inmates inspired her to write many mystery novels, that might make more sense. She listened to their stories and from there came the inspiration for mysteries. The second clause further makes it clear - Old Cataract Hotel is the model for a hotel in one of her novels. So she would have likely visited the hotel and modelled her novel hotel on that.

'served as an inspiration' in many novels means she took info from her travels and used it in many of her novels. That does make somewhat more sense.

That said, the difference between options (A) and (E) is not a lot. The official explanation points out the pronoun problem in option (A) but we know that GMAT accepts it. This might just be an old question from the test prep company.

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