Finally reaching a decision on an issue that has long been politically

By no means do you have to approach a question in the same manner as I do to arrive at the correct answer. There are quite often multiple ways of attacking the same underlined portion. Have you read earlier responses, particularly those by Experts, on choice (C)? When multiple Expert voices arrive at the conclusion that (C) is a suboptimal way of expressing the meaning of the sentence, then I hope that at least one of those posts resonates with your own reasoning. Remember, you are not looking for any answer to work within an SC question; you are looking for the best answer of the five that are given, the one that expresses the essential information in the clearest and most concise way.

Please let me know if you have further questions about (C) after reading through earlier posts. (Or you can tell me that one of those posts made sense, and that would please me, too.)

- Andrew

hi AndrewN, thanks a lot

I read the whole thread, and I still cannot understand why it is not reasonable as C states.

Would you please point?

I have a minor point to make about (C) that has not yet been brought up. In addition to the lack of parallelism I pointed out earlier—what I see as a major structural problem—there is also a slightly "off" placement of instead in (C). The sentence:

(C) Finally reaching a decision on an issue that has long been politically charged in the Pacific Northwest, politicians decided to postpone by at least five years an ambitious plan for protecting wild salmon and other endangered fish, and instead they proposed a series of smaller steps, intending to protect the fish.

At the beginning of a standalone clause, to add emphasis, you might place instead in the beginning like this, but in a compound sentence, you would expect to see it come after the subject and follow proposed: they proposed instead. To be clear, I would NOT use this as an elimination point, but it is not ideal. I like to say that when the doubts start piling up against an answer, it is probably a safer bet to cut that one off and seek a better alternative. If you want to cling to (C), I suppose I cannot disabuse you of its merits; however, I would like to turn the tables and ask just what you think (B) is lacking that (C) does better? Remember, the goal is not to find any sentence that could work, and especially not one that sounds okay, but to select the best of the five options presented. So I ask again, when it comes to the key differences between (B) and (C), which I will highlight below, what does (C) achieve in the way of clarity of meaning that (B) does not?



- Andrew

Hi Sir AndrewN

Can I also mark B over C because of following 2 reasons:



1. Verb+ing Modifier: proposing vs intending
B. Politicians decided something (cause) with the intention of proposing something (result effect)
C. Politician decided and they proposed with the result of intending to protect the fish?
Politicians decided and proposed with the result of intending something? Little skeptical in choosing this option
B makes more sense with overall meaning

2. Verb-ed Modifier (intended )
B says: intended correctly modifies series of small steps; make more sense
C says: no modifier for series of small steps
B makes more sense with overall meaning

Yes, imSKR, these are both valid considerations. And if you are reading, zoezhuyan, I hope you can appreciate the points that are made in the quoted post. Whether you agree or disagree with the points the community has made about (C), I would advise you at this point to let the dust settle on the question. If you find that you keep running into modifier issues, then you can study those more in earnest with or without the help of a qualified professional. Never let a single question hold up your preparation.

- Andrew

EducationAisle Why is A wrong? Is it just that B is of better quality?

TIA.

Yeah, overall, concision definitely plays a role here.

Also notice that "which" in A is very far from its intended antecedent (which I presume is "plan").

I know that A is wrong , but is it wrong because of usage of 'instead of which' or is it because of usage of 'by which'

Neither phrase is technically a grammatical error, but both are problematic -- the first one in particular. Take another look at (A):


First, it's tough to figure out what the initial "which" is referring to. It clearly doesn't make sense to write "instead of endangered fish" or "instead of salmon." If you keep digging, you might land on "ambitious plan."

But now you have the odd phrase, "instead of [the ambitious plan] they..." Wait. So "they" are instead of the "ambitious plan." Who's "they?" The politicians? Why would politicians be instead of a plan?

If you read it several times, you can puzzle out what all the pronouns are doing -- instead of the old plan, the politicians want to propose a new one. So I wouldn't feel comfortable saying they're definitively WRONG, but it takes an awful lot of work to arrive at a coherent meaning.

The next "which" isn't quite as bad, but the phrase, "by which they..." leaves the reader again having to scramble to figure out what the pronouns are doing. It seem as though "which" now refers to "steps" and "they" again goes back to "politicians." But wouldn't it be simpler and clearer and to dispense with the pronouns entirely and just write that the steps are intended to protect the fish, as (B) does? Why throw in two consecutive murky pronouns?

If one answer choice is clear and logical and another is littered with confusing and possibly illogical constructions, you're better off choosing the clear and logical option, even if the murky constructions aren't definitively wrong according to a usage guide.

I hope that helps!

A. politicians decided to postpone by at least five years an ambitious plan to protect wild salmon and other endangered fish, instead of which they proposed a series of smaller steps, by which they intend
Too many whichs distorts the meaning therefore out

B. politicians decided to postpone by at least five years an ambitious plan to protect wild salmon and other endangered fish, proposing instead a series of smaller steps intended
The meaning is perfect therefore let us hang on to it

C. politicians decided to postpone by at least five years an ambitious plan for protecting wild salmon and other endangered fish, and instead they proposed a series of smaller steps, intending
They refering back to fishes which is not makiing any sense

D. an ambitious plan to protect wild salmon and other endangered fish was postponed by politicians, who instead proposed a series of smaller steps, intending
intending isn't the right usage therefore out

E. an ambitious plan to protect wild salmon and other endangered fish has been postponed by politicians, proposing instead a series of smaller steps intended
The meaning isn't perfect therefore out

Hello,
I want to check whether my reasons for rejecting the Choice A are correct.
Here Choice A mentions "series of smaller steps, by which they intend to protect the fish."

Here 'which' can refer to 'smaller steps' or 'series of smaller steps'

First mistake is that there is no clear referent.

Second: generally we will say: "We intend to protect the fish by reducing the fishing." OR "We intend to protect the fish by introducing new fishing laws."
In essence we say "by <doing something>".
Now as per the sentence "by smaller steps" or "by series of smaller step" do not seem correct. It could have been "by executing smaller steps"

Please tell me whether the above reasoning is ok.
And also point out other mistakes in Original sentence (If any).

Thanks and Regards!

Whether you think 'which' refers to 'smaller steps' or 'series of smaller steps', it doesn't make much of a difference in terms of meaning. So, I would not bother too much about this.

In fact, the first "which" (instead of which) is a bigger issue, because "which" is quite far from the intended referent "plan".

GMATNinja

Can I eliminate this choice because each which refers to different noun ?
Generally, is it acceptable to use the same pronoun to refer different noun? << because it may be confusing readers and make the sentence unclear.

There's no rule that forbids us to use "which" to refer to different nouns in the same sentence, but if one option is confusing because it contains more than one "which," referring to more than one noun, and another option is clearer because it doesn't, well, you'll choose the clearer one, right?

So file this one under "not a concrete error, but certainly not ideal."

I hope that clears things up!

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