Compared with southern New England's more developed beaches, Maine see

hi clipea12,

this question tests on following concept...
1) parallelism : beaches cannot be paralled with a place but its beaches..
2) seem likely and seem to : seem like is not appropriate here as it means like whom.. eg he seems like a gem of a person
3) compared with and compared to.. although compared with is correctly used in non underlined portion, it may be of help in some other question...
compared with to highlight differences in common things and compared to to highlight similarity in uncommon items...

lets look at the choices -

A) Maine seems like they have not dramatically changed in the past few centuries.
incorrect .. does not fulfill point 1 and 2

B) Maine's seem not to have
correct

C) Maine beaches seems like it has not
it is singular but plural is required.. seems to is better..

D) the beaches of Maine have not
removing seem changes the meaning

E) Maine seems as if it ha
wrong comparision.. wrong idiom used
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Compared with southern New England's more developed beaches, Maine seems like they have not dramatically changed in the past few centuries.

A) Maine seems like they have not dramatically changed in the past few centuries.
Incorrect. Comparing Maine with beaches.
B) Maine's seem not to have
Correct. Using parallelism to omit the subject "beaches".
C) Maine beaches seems like it has not
Incorrect. S-V number agreement.
D) the beaches of Maine have not
Incorrect. Meaning changed (lack of "to seem")
E) Maine seems as if it has
Incorrect. Same as A.

exactly ! didn't notice the change in meaning :s

Chose B. The only answer that seems to make any sense.

Compared with southern New England's more developed beaches, Maine seems like they have not dramatically changed in the past few centuries.

A) Maine seems like they have not dramatically changed in the past few centuries. - Incorrect - Illogical Comparison

B) Maine's seem not to have - Correct

C) Maine beaches seems like it has not - Incorrect - "like" is used for nouns

D) the beaches of Maine have not - Incorrect - meaning changes without seem

E) Maine seems as if it has[/quote] - Incorrect - Illogical Comparison

Hi chetan2u,
Isn't choice B's omitted part would be [developed beaches] rather than beaches?
Thanks

A C and E are wrong because they refer to Maine rather than to its beaches.
D changes the meaning. The sentence is supposed to say that it seems that Maine’s beaches have not changes, not that they definitely have not.

B is the correct answer.

Kaplan's explanation:

Read and look for errors:

The sentence compares "southern New England’s … beaches" to "Maine." These two items are not logically comparable, so the comparison is incorrect. A valid comparison would compare beaches to beaches, or states to states. Comparing a beach to a state, however, is illogical. Additionally, items compared must be in parallel form. The first item, "southern New England's...," uses the possessive form. The second item should do so as well.

Scan and group the answers:

Choices (A) and (E) compare "beaches" to "Maine." Choices (B), (C), and (D) compare "beaches" to "beaches," though using different language.

Eliminate wrong answers:

(A) and (E) can be eliminated for the incorrect comparison explained above. (C) refers to "Maine beaches,” which makes the comparison logical, but is not parallel to the original sentence's possessive "New England's..." (C) also uses the awkward and incorrect language, "seems like it has not." The pronoun-verb combination "it has" is referring to "beaches," which is plural. The proper wording would have been "they have," although the overall phrase would still be awkward. All of these reasons make (C) incorrect as well.

(D) refers to "the beaches of Maine," which makes the comparison logical. However, it is not parallel to the original sentence's possessive "New England's...". (D) also changes the meaning of the sentence. The original sentence says that the beaches "seem like they have not … changed," while (D) states that the beaches “have not … changed." The author only wants to state that the beaches appear to have remained the same, not that they truly have not changed "dramatically … in the past few centuries." Eliminate (D).

(B) is the only choice that compares logically similar items in a parallel structure, and does not distort the meaning of the sentence. (B) is correct.

TAKEAWAY: Don't focus solely on the underlined portion. The comparison here began way back at the very beginning of the sentence.

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