Although it is rare now to find anyone who has heard of her, Rachel Cr

I am a beginner and yet to able to eliminate options based on correct grammar but would like to stress the importance of understanding the meaning of the original sentence and the choices. Like in this, I was unable to find any mistake and felt it is correct as it is. Read all choices and marked A as correct choice as felt problems with all the options. Like I said I am not an expert in grammar and still learning to eliminate confidently. But this trick can really help up to some extent.

We need verb rare rather than the adverb rarely , also now needs to be placed in the correct position to denote the meaning clearly.

A. Although it is rare now to find anyone who has heard of her : CORRECT.

B. However rare it might be to find someone who has heard of her now: Misplaced modifier "Now". Word "Now" needs to be placed as close to rare as possible.INCORRECT.

C.Even though it may now be rare that she has been heard of by someone : Sentence is unnecessarily convoluted. "Has been" is wrong as Rachel Crothers no longer exists.INCORRECT.

D.Despite her now being heard of rarely by anyone: adverb rarely denotes the wrong intent. we need rare.INCORRECT.

E.She has now been heard of only rarely by anyone, but : issues: clearly incorrect, issues :"rarely". misplaced modifier now. INCORRECT.

Ans - A

Hope it's clear.

Although it is rare now to find anyone who has heard of her, Rachel Crothers was a successful playwright; between 1906 and 1937, she saw close to thirty of her plays open on Broadway.


A. Although it is rare now to find anyone who has heard of her, -- CORRECT, "her" unambiguously refers to Rachel Crothers

B. However rare it might be to find someone who has heard of her now, -- "However" sets a contrast which stresses on the action of finding someone who has heard of Rachel than the concept of rarity

C. Even though it may now be rare that she has been heard of by someone, -- Passive construct

D. Despite her now being heard of rarely by anyone, -- wrong usage of "being"

E. She has now been heard of only rarely by anyone, but -- No need for present perfect tense

So, A should be correct answer.

Although it is rare now to find anyone who has heard of her, Rachel Crothers was a successful playwright; between 1906 and 1937, she saw close to thirty of her plays open on Broadway.

* Subject verb pair [ "it is" ; "who has" ; "Rachel Crothers was" ; "she saw"] - all subjects have verb pair
* Tense Form [ Present & Past ] - properly conveys intended meaning
* If-then condition - not used
* Subjunctive verb - not used
* Pronoun [ "who" & "she" have proper antecedent ]
* Modifier [ "who has heard of her" correctly modifies "anyone" ]
* Parallelism [ "between" 1906 "and" 1937 ] - seems okay
* Comparison - Not used
* Idioms [ "between" & "and" ] - Correctly used


A. Although it is rare now to find anyone who has heard of her,

- conveys intended meaning. Hence Correct

B. However rare it might be to find someone who has heard of her now,

- usage of "however" & "might" changed the intended meaning

- Incorrect


C. Even though it may now be rare that she has been heard of by someone,

1. "even though" changed the meaning
2. Passive verb"by" seems incorrect

- Incorrect[color=#ff0000]
[/color]
D. Despite her now being heard of rarely by anyone,

1. usage of "being" is inappropriate
2. "Although" is much more suitable in comparison to "despite"

- Incorrect


E. She has now been heard of only rarely by anyone, but

- using "been" is incorrect

IMO(A)

Here's the official explanation provided by the GMAC for this question:

This sentence about playwright Rachel Crothers is clear and grammatically correct. We are told she was very successful although few people currently living have heard of her. The conjunction although normally functions to concede a point, or (as in the given sentence) to qualify a salient point, in this case Crothers’s success as a playwright.

Option A: Correct. The clause introduced by although functions correctly in context. The adverb now is correctly positioned to modify is rare as intended.

Option B: This is wordy and unnecessarily awkward, and the wording however rare it might be provides no compensating improvement over the use of although in the given sentence. The adverb now is likely intended to modify the verb might be and would be better juxtaposed to it; its placement at the end of the clause confusingly suggests that it might modify has heard, or perhaps find.

Option C: The use of the passive-voice verb form has been heard of is wordy and unnecessarily awkward and offers no improvement on the active-voice verb formulation in the given sentence. The phraseology it may … be rare that is more awkward and wordy than the phraseology in the given sentence.

Option D: The indirectness of this usage—despite followed by a long noun phrase with the passive-voice verb form being heard of—is awkward and less preferable to the more condensed language used in the given sentence. In the given sentence, the adverb now modifies the verb is, not the verb has heard, whereas with this answer choice it modifies the verb being heard.

Option E: The use of the passive-voice verb form has been heard of is wordy and unnecessarily awkward and offers no improvement on the active-voice formulation in the given the sentence. In the given sentence, the adverb now modifies the verb is, not the verb has heard, whereas here it modifies has … been heard of. She has now been heard of only rarely appears to indicate that she had almost never been heard of even during the past time when she was a successful playwright.

The correct answer is A.

Please note that I'm not the author of this explanation. I'm just posting it here since I believe it can help the community.

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