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555-605 Level|   Pronouns|                                 
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TheUltimateWinner
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Archaeologists in Ireland believe that a recently discovered chalice 09 Jan 2021, 08:38
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AndrewN
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Andrew,

Silly question about pronouns. There is not article 'the' that is infront of chalice. So when you plug in the the pronoun the sentence just doesn't sound grammatical.

"To keep chalice from being stolen" are we allowed to just plug in articles as we see fit?
Hello, sislam04. I do not think your question is silly at all. You should ask yourself what the referent of a pronoun is when seeking to justify the presence of that pronoun. Here, you are correct: it refers to the chalice that is mentioned earlier in the sentence. Since that one chalice has been discovered, we can logically place the ahead of the word in the latter part of the sentence (to refer to this one and only chalice):

was probably buried to keep [the chalice] from being stolen by invaders.

The article a is less restrictive in nature. I discuss some of the finer points in terms of conveyed meaning between the two articles in this post.

I hope that helps. Thank you for following up.

- Andrew
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Thanks for the nice response.
But 'it' should refer only the noun. Why do it refers to something along with 'the'?
Thanks__
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Archaeologists in Ireland believe that a recently discovered chalice 09 Jan 2021, 13:46
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TheUltimateWinner
AndrewN
sislam04

Andrew,

Silly question about pronouns. There is not article 'the' that is infront of chalice. So when you plug in the the pronoun the sentence just doesn't sound grammatical.

"To keep chalice from being stolen" are we allowed to just plug in articles as we see fit?
Hello, sislam04. I do not think your question is silly at all. You should ask yourself what the referent of a pronoun is when seeking to justify the presence of that pronoun. Here, you are correct: it refers to the chalice that is mentioned earlier in the sentence. Since that one chalice has been discovered, we can logically place the ahead of the word in the latter part of the sentence (to refer to this one and only chalice):

was probably buried to keep [the chalice] from being stolen by invaders.

The article a is less restrictive in nature. I discuss some of the finer points in terms of conveyed meaning between the two articles in this post.

I hope that helps. Thank you for following up.

- Andrew
Thanks for the nice response.
But 'it' should refer only the noun. Why do it refers to something along with 'the'?
Thanks__
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Hello, TheUltimateWinner. I agree that it should stand in for a noun, but the article must be added to make the sentence grammatical. To be clear, it would be incorrect to say or write,

Archaeologists in Ireland believe that a recently discovered chalice, which dates from the eighth century, was probably buried to keep chalice from being stolen by invaders.

Rather, the it needs to clearly refer to the chalice, the only one that has been mentioned in the sentence, as an understood element. Although some languages do not bother with articles, I guess we can count ourselves lucky with English in that at least we do not have to worry about article genders (masculine, feminine, or neuter).

Thank you for thinking to follow up with me on the issue. I hope that helps.

- Andrew
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Archaeologists in Ireland believe that a recently discovered chalice 26 Apr 2022, 08:54
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Archaeologists in Ireland believe that a recently discovered chalice, which dates from the eighth century, was probably buried to keep from being stolen by invaders.

(A) to keep from
(B) to keep it from
(C) to avoid
(D) in order that it would avoid
(E) in order to keep from
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A isn't too far off from a correct answer but what does "to keep" refer to?

B is correct in meaning and intent "to keep the chalice from being stolen"
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Archaeologists in Ireland believe that a recently discovered chalice 06 Aug 2022, 06:18
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A —> change the meaning. Indeed, it seems that the intent of burin the chalice was to keep from being stolen by invaders
B —> having the pronoun IT, the sentence gives the intended meaning
C —> same meaning issue
D —> in order that should be IN ORDER TO
E —> same issue with meaning
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Archaeologists in Ireland believe that a recently discovered chalice 14 Sep 2022, 21:56
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HarveyX
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Ask yourself who buried the chalice and why. They buried it "to keep it from being stolen", not "to keep from being stolen". The second example sounds like they buried the chalice because they didn't want themselves to be stolen..


There is a sentence in Manhattan SC book.
Coffee was drunk by her to stay awake. - this sentence is wrong.

However I can apply the same philosophy by asking:
who drunk the coffee - her (she)
why - to keep her stay awake.

Can you advise why this sentence is wrong?

Thanks
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If we know WHO performed the action of “drinking the coffee,” why would we want to avoid identifying “she” as the grammatical subject? If the purpose of the sentence were to just say that someone/anyone drank the coffee, then we would not need to mention “she.” However, if the purpose of the sentence is to identify “she” as the person who did the drinking, a more direct sentence makes more sense.

In the current problem, exactly “who” performed the action of “burying” is not made explicit. Further, this performer is not important to the context of the sentence. The point is to talk about the reason why these artifacts were buried, not who did the burying.

Passive Voice is neither awkward nor redundant in and of itself.

In other words, a sentence written in passive voice is not necessarily incorrect on the GMAT.

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Archaeologists in Ireland believe that a recently discovered chalice 26 Apr 2023, 05:55
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dear avigutman, AndrewN,MartyTargetTestPrep , RonTargetTestPrep

I crossed off B because I think it is inappropriate, it will be better if we use itself, because the subject of the sentence is the same as the object.

then I cannot disguise between A and C,

so I guessed randomly

appreciate your help
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Archaeologists in Ireland believe that a recently discovered chalice 26 Apr 2023, 06:53
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zoezhuyan
I crossed off B because I think it is inappropriate, it will be better if we use itself, because the subject of the sentence is the same as the object.
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Notice that it's not logical that the chalice was buried to "keep itself" from being stolen. After all, a chalice is not something we think of as doing something to keep things from happening to "itself."

So, actually, using "itself" there doesn't make sense. We need to use "it" instead.

Quote:
then I cannot disguise between A and C,
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The (A) version conveys that the chalice chose to be "buried to keep from being stolen," as if the chalice had the intention of keeping from being stolen and therefore got itself buried. Since a chalice is not something we think of as having intention, that meaning doesn't make sense.

The (C) version conveys a similar meaning, that the chalice chose to be "buried to avoid being stolen," as if the chalice had the intention of avoiding being stolen and therefore got itself buried. Since a chalice is not something we think of as having intention, that meaning doesn't make sense either.

So, the best choice is (B).
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Archaeologists in Ireland believe that a recently discovered chalice 06 Jan 2025, 14:04
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