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Conflicting scientific studies have variously cited as the

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guygmat

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18 Jun 2011, 21:12

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45% (01:44) wrong

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Conflicting scientific studies have variously cited as the part of a pizza most likely to burn the roof of your mouth the tomato sauce and the bottom of the cheese topping.

A)Conflicting scientific studies have variously cited as the part of a pizza most likely to burn the roof of your mouth the tomato sauce and the bottom of the cheese topping
B)The part of a pizza most likely to burn the roof of your mouth have been variously cited by conflicting scientific studies as the tomato sauce and the bottom of the cheese topping.
C)The part of a pizza most likely to burn the roof of your mouth has been variously cited as the tomato sauce and the bottom of the cheese topping, by conflicting scientific studies
D)Conflicting scientific studies have variously cited the tomato sauce and the bottom of the cheese topping as the part of a pizza most likely to burn the roof of your mouth
E)It has been variously cited in conflicting scientific studies that the part of a pizza most likely to burn the roof of your mouth is the tomato sauce or the bottom of the cheese topping

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daagh

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18 Jun 2011, 23:31

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A conflicting choice involves selecting ‘this or that’. ‘This and that’ denotes same direction and no debate... In my opinion except choice E, all others flounder on this count. Then how can D be the answer? Can the OE give a clue?

In addition, ‘the tomato sauce and the bottom of the cheese topping’, are two distinct items and hence they are parts rather than simply ‘part’.

sudhir18n

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18 Jun 2011, 23:38

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daagh

Even I marked E.
Guygmat: can you please post the OE

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19 Jun 2011, 15:06

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+1 D

Beautiful question.
E sounds better, but it changes the meaning. We need "AND" instead of "OR" because the part of the pizza is compounded by "the tomato sauce AND the bottom of the cheese".

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29 Jun 2011, 19:37

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D seems questionable.

I think E looks the best...

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29 Jun 2011, 21:13

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metallicafan

+1 D

Beautiful question.
E sounds better, but it changes the meaning. We need "AND" instead of "OR" because the part of the pizza is compounded by "the tomato sauce AND the bottom of the cheese".

I disagree!

The bottom of the cheese topping and the tomato sauce are 2 separate entities and must be classified as such. Using the logic followed in D, the following sentence should also be correct right:

Conflicting scientific studies have variously cited the leaf and the branch as the part of a tree most likely to fall off.

How on earth does that sound correct?

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30 Jun 2011, 02:25

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daagh

You would think so, but in this case that's not quite correct.

"Or" is used to indicate a conflict giving rise to a necessary dichotomy, whereas "conflicting" has already done so. We are referring to a group of scientific studies taken together and not one after another individually. This is why:

we would say: "Each of several scientific studies cites either the tomato sauce or the bottom of the cheese topping..."
we would say: "Several conflicting scientific studies cite the tomato sauce or the bottom of the cheese topping..."

As for "part" versus "parts," "parts" in this case would imply that the same scientific study cites both the tomato sauce AND the bottom of the cheese topping. Given the conflict at play, however, it is pretty clear that each study is in agreement at least on the point that there is only one part of a pizza most likely to burn the roof of the mouth.

E, meanwhile, is just a little bit convoluted. "It has been claimed that..." is a common and aesthetically acceptable use of the "it" as a subject opener, but "It has been cited that..." is a bit mentally jarring.

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30 Jun 2011, 03:05

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Conflicting scientific studies have variously cited as the part of a pizza most likely to burn the roof of your mouth the tomato sauce and the bottom of the cheese topping.

A)Conflicting scientific studies have variously cited as the part of a pizza most likely to burn the roof of your mouth the tomato sauce and the bottom of the cheese topping- Awkward and missing is in the underlined portion
B)The part of a pizza most likely to burn the roof of your mouth [strike]have been variously cited by conflicting scientific studies[/strike]as the tomato sauce and the bottom of the cheese topping.- mixed up sentence, the striked part is in the wrong place
C)The part of a pizza most likely to burn the roof of your mouth has been variously cited as the tomato sauce and the bottom of the cheese topping, by conflicting scientific studies-underlined part may not require has been and as is wrong, need are. Additionally, by conflicting scientific studies at end is wrong.
D)Conflicting scientific studies have variously cited the tomato sauce and the bottom of the cheese topping as the part of a pizza most likely to burn the roof of your mouth-seems okay, hold
E)It has been variously cited in conflicting scientific studies that the part of a pizza most likely to burn the roof of your mouth is the tomato sauce or the bottom of the cheese topping- variously is placed wrong, could be before conflicting and could be variou

rustypolymath

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30 Jun 2011, 06:03

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ravish

metallicafan

+1 D

Beautiful question.
E sounds better, but it changes the meaning. We need "AND" instead of "OR" because the part of the pizza is compounded by "the tomato sauce AND the bottom of the cheese".

Actually, it IS correct. Within the group of scientific studies one will find both studies that cite the leaf and studies that cite the branch. Therefore, within the group of studies the leaf AND the branch are cited. The individual studies conflict one another among themselves.

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30 Jun 2011, 12:47

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rustypolymath

ravish

metallicafan

+1 D

Beautiful question.
E sounds better, but it changes the meaning. We need "AND" instead of "OR" because the part of the pizza is compounded by "the tomato sauce AND the bottom of the cheese".

Correct me if I am wrong but is the meaning of the original sentence basically that, there are different studies being conducted concurrently , some that state that the tomato sauce is the part of the pizza most likely to burn your mouth and others that state that the bottom of the cheese is the part most likely to burn the part of the mouth?

If that is the case then, while it makes a little more sense, I am still not fully sold on the relevance of such a question to the GMAT. Having solved the entire SC section of the Official Guide, I have never come across even a single question where I felt that there was ambiguity involved regarding the correct answer.

Perhaps I am over analyzing here but, the official answer, in the case of this question , is open to interpretation because one can get easily confused given the use of the word 'several', which does not imply 2 separate studies given that there are 2 parts of the pizza being cited here. Then there is of course the more apparent use of the word 'part' which is singular and does not make sense when put together with 2 different parts of the pizza.

If I am wrong, it would be helpful if you could direct me to the format of sentence correction that I may need to study in order to better understand this pattern.

Thank you!

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30 Jun 2011, 15:30

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A)Conflicting scientific studies have variously cited as the part of a pizza most likely to burn the roof of your mouth the tomato sauce and the bottom of the cheese topping - cited x as... or x is cited as... noun is missing
B)The part of a pizza most likely to burn the roof of your mouth have been variously cited by conflicting scientific studies as the tomato sauce and the bottom of the cheese topping. - part of pizza is singular - have been is plural
C)The part of a pizza most likely to burn the roof of your mouth has been variously cited as the tomato sauce and the bottom of the cheese topping, by conflicting scientific studies - passive voice
D)Conflicting scientific studies have variously cited the tomato sauce and the bottom of the cheese topping as the part of a pizza most likely to burn the roof of your mouth - active
E)It has been variously cited in conflicting scientific studies that the part of a pizza most likely to burn the roof of your mouth is the tomato sauce or the bottom of the cheese topping - passive

D is correct

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05 Jul 2011, 19:42

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Confused between D and E. I am going with D. E has the "it has been cited". It who? Does not sound right.

rustypolymath

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06 Jul 2011, 01:57

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ravish

That is the intended meaning.

Quote:

If that is the case then, while it makes a little more sense, I am still not fully sold on the relevance of such a question to the GMAT. Having solved the entire SC section of the Official Guide, I have never come across even a single question where I felt that there was ambiguity involved regarding the correct answer.

Perhaps I am over analyzing here but, the official answer, in the case of this question , is open to interpretation because one can get easily confused given the use of the word 'several', which does not imply 2 separate studies given that there are 2 parts of the pizza being cited here. Then there is of course the more apparent use of the word 'part' which is singular and does not make sense when put together with 2 different parts of the pizza.

Quote:

If I am wrong, it would be helpful if you could direct me to the format of sentence correction that I may need to study in order to better understand this pattern.

Thank you!

It has to do with the semantic layers of the sentence. Here, I'll post a nifty little sentence diagram and maybe this will help.

Attachments

File comment: Now, as you can see, the subject of the sentence is "studies" and the object of the verb "have cited" is compound. Since both of these have been cited in the studies, we need to use "and," not "or.

However, the prepositional phrase "as the part" is in another layer of the sentence. It is not a modifier of these two noun objects ("sauce" and "bottom") but rather of the verb phrase "have cited." Were we to say "parts" this would seem to contradict the notion that the studies were "conflicting."

On the other hand, were we to use "or," this would imply a dichotomy that is not warranted, because in the collective pool of studies BOTH the sauce AND the bottom do appear.

Basically, "as the part," being an adverb, needs to appropriately modify the action. The studies do not all cite the two parts together at once and to imply so by writing "as the parts" would be abusive.

(This diagram is based on the Reed-Kellogg diagramming method but has been slightly simplified in order to facilitate its execution with MS Word tables rather than with PhotoShop objects.)

Pizza diagram.gif [ 5.2 KiB | Viewed 9427 times ]

rustypolymath

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06 Jul 2011, 02:08

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ravish

Forgot to add: I have never seen THIS particular conflict come up in a real Sentence Correction question, but here is my two cents: to preserve the correct meaning, "as the part" logically needs to be "as the part" and not "as the parts," and the conjunction in the list needs to be "and" and not "or." On the grounds of semantic layers, these respective aspects of D are both grammatically justifiable and to change either would be to distort the meaning of the sentence.

Thus, there is no ambiguity here regarding the correct answer. As regards the GMAT, knowing what refers to what and which form it needs to take is certainly essential. Keep in mind that there are many sentences on the GMAT which at first glance APPEAR to be "open to interpretation," but there is always SOMETHING to swing us definitively toward the correct answer. This is because the human mind often does not catch every detail or make every semantic connection in one reading or even several.

In this case, remember: the word "part" is a part of an adverb that refers to the actions performed by the studies and not to the direct objects "sauce" and "bottom" in themselves.

Afterwards, I am not the absolute and final word in grammar. That would be the American Catholic religious sisters teaching English in a parochial school (yes, they are among the finest grammaticians of the English language in existence).

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12 Sep 2011, 00:36

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Quote:

Guessed D as it looks the least altered from the original and I can't seem to find any fault with it.
A - awkward
B - subject-verb agreement --> 'the part...has been' not 'the part...have been'
C - passive voice
E - passive voice

Thanks for below, rustypolymath!

Quote:

rustypolymath wrote:

"Or" is used to indicate a conflict giving rise to a necessary dichotomy, whereas "conflicting" has already done so. We are referring to a group of scientific studies taken together and not one after another individually. This is why:

we would say: "Each of several scientific studies cites either the tomato sauce or the bottom of the cheese topping..."
we would say: "Several conflicting scientific studies cite the tomato sauce or the bottom of the cheese topping..."

As for "part" versus "parts," "parts" in this case would imply that the same scientific study cites both the tomato sauce AND the bottom of the cheese topping. Given the conflict at play, however, it is pretty clear that each study is in agreement at least on the point that there is only one part of a pizza most likely to burn the roof of the mouth.

E, meanwhile, is just a little bit convoluted. "It has been claimed that..." is a common and aesthetically acceptable use of the "it" as a subject opener, but "It has been cited that..." is a bit mentally jarring.

Quote:

ravish wrote:

That is the intended meaning.

Quote:

The key word is "conflicting," which implies that each study cites only one part, so "parts" would not make sense. On the other hand, since both parts are being cited and not one or the other, we need to use "and." Confusing, I know!

It has to do with the semantic layers of the sentence. Here, I'll post a nifty little sentence diagram and maybe this will help.

Now, as you can see, the subject of the sentence is "studies" and the object of the verb "have cited" is compound. Since both of these have been cited in the studies, we need to use "and," not "or.

However, the prepositional phrase "as the part" is in another layer of the sentence. It is not a modifier of these two noun objects ("sauce" and "bottom") but rather of the verb phrase "have cited." Were we to say "parts" this would seem to contradict the notion that the studies were "conflicting."

On the other hand, were we to use "or," this would imply a dichotomy that is not warranted, because in the collective pool of studies BOTH the sauce AND the bottom do appear.

Basically, "as the part," being an adverb, needs to appropriately modify the action. The studies do not all cite the two parts together at once and to imply so by writing "as the parts" would be abusive.

(This diagram is based on the Reed-Kellogg diagramming method but has been slightly simplified in order to facilitate its execution with MS Word tables rather than with PhotoShop objects.)

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12 Sep 2011, 01:11

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Notice the superlative. "The part MOST likely" can only be one thing. Like "the most likely to succeed." The word "variously" here also makes it clear that its either the "tomato sauce" or the "bottom of the cheese."

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12 Sep 2011, 01:11

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Brilliant question...even though I selected e first, but after reading the explanations, D makes more sense! Thanks!

rustypolymath

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12 Sep 2011, 03:32

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Izvos

If the subject were "each study," that would be correct. However, the subject is "conflicting studies," and in the mass of these studies one finds both the "tomato sauce" cited as the most likely AND the "bottom of the cheese" cited as the most likely. Thus we need "and," not "or."