Quote:
(B) According to medieval monks, the remains of King Arthur and Queen Guinevere were found at Glastonbury Abbey in A.D. 1191, Arthur's coffin marked with the inscription (in Latin): "Here Lies Arthur, The Once and Future King."
(C) According to medieval monks, the remains of King Arthur and Queen Guinevere were found at Glastonbury Abbey in A.D. 1191, and the inscription was marked on Arthur's coffin (in Latin): "Here Lies Arthur, The Once and Future King."
warrior1991 wrote:
generis I am in a toss in between option B and C.
Quote:
(B) Arthur's coffin marked with the inscription
1. Is this the case of Noun+Noun Modifier modifying 'the remains of King Arthur'??
Noun:- Arthur's coffin
Noun Modifier:- Marked with the inscription
2. Is it the case of -ed modifiers(marked)??
On what basis we say that this option is correct??Quote:
(C) and the inscription was marked on Arthur's coffin
This seems to be fine to me. The remains of A and B were found , and the inscription was marked on A's coffin.
What is wrong with this one??? warrior1991 , this question is brutal. Good questions. +1 I can see why you like option (C).
The errors in Option C are subtle. Option (B) uses an absolute phrase, a difficult and rare construct.
Quote:
(B) Arthur's coffin marked with the inscription
1. Is this the case of Noun+Noun Modifier modifying 'the remains of King Arthur'??
Noun:- Arthur's coffin
Noun Modifier:- Marked with the inscription
No, but you are close. (You did not mention that the noun + noun phrase modifies the event in the main clause, so I assume that you are not describing an absolute phrase.)
You describe an
appositive, which re-describes or re-names the noun.
A noun and its appositive are usually interchangeable and if not, they are very similar.
This phrase is not an appositive.
Arthur's coffin . . . is not similar to
the remains of King Arthur.
• absolute phraseIn option B, we have an
absolute phrase. As is commonly the case, the structure is
noun + noun modifier that includes a
participle Absolute phrases are described
HERE. (I know you've seen them before. Others might need the link.)
The absolute phrase in (B) expands upon the action of the main clause sentence.
remains were discovered. . . , Arthur's coffin marked with the inscription (in Latin): XYZThe italicized portion modifies the event in the main clause.
Absolute phrases are
very rare on the GMAT. (I can't recall a single one at the moment.)
Quote:
(B) Arthur's coffin marked with the inscription
2. Is it the case of -ed modifiers(marked)??
On what basis can we say that this option is correct??
On the basis that the odd-sounding thing attached to the sentence is a correctly-construed absolute phrase and the other options have errors.
(my emphasis) Your passion for learning is awesome. True, this absolute phrase is a little disconnected logically . . .
This example is a more typical absolute phrase, taken from
HERE:
The family devoured Aunt Lenora's carrot cake, their fingers scraping the leftover frosting from the plates.The italicized part is not an appositive. It does not describe the carrot cake. It cannot describe the family. It gives an extra detail about the action in the main clause. The connection between the main clause and the absolute phrase is clear.
By contrast, the absolute phrase in option (B) is more similar to this one, taken from
HERE (from Stephen Crane, "The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky"):
The man stood laughing, his weapons at his hips. The logical connection between the absolute phrase and main clause is tenuous. The connection in (B) is a little better, though I would expect to hear more about the discovery of the people or their remains, not about the coffin in which one was buried.
• Errors in (C): (1) possible ambiguity and (2) THE • (1) possible ambiguity: -- the
monks did not claim that they themselves discovered the remains of King Arthur and Queen Guinevere—but
someone discovered the remains.
Problem? It could sound as though whoever discovered the remains also etched an inscription on the coffin.
Perhaps when the remains were found, the inscription was marked (right after discovery) by the people who found the remains.
It's better to avoid any possibility of ambiguity in meaning and choose (B).
Option (C) would be clearer written this way:
and an inscription [had been] marked on Arthur's coffin (in Latin): "Here Lies Arthur, The Once and Future King."
Had been marked indicates that the coffin was marked before the remains were discovered. (Past perfect.)
I don't read (C) as suggesting that the monks put the inscription on.
• THE inscription????? (This error bothered me more than #1.)
-- THE inscription implies that the inscription was mentioned. Well, that inscription was not mentioned. I wondered, "Did I miss something?"
The sentence gets stranger, because a sudden appearance of "the inscription" is followed by a particular description of the specific thing that had NOT been mentioned before THE.
I eliminated (C) immediately based on that error.
We could correct the error by mentioning a non-specific inscription using the word AN or THIS, both of which signal that we are about to get further information after the colon (the quoted inscription).
...
and an inscription was [had been] marked on Arthur's coffin: "XYZ."
(B) is the better answer.
Your questions are very good. I hope that analysis helps.
_________________
—The only thing more dangerous than ignorance is arrogance. ~Einstein—I stand with Ukraine.
Donate to Help Ukraine!