For centuries, dolls dressed as witches have hung in Norwegian kitchen

OFFICIAL EXPLANATION



THE PROMPT

• Meaning?
Dolls dressed as witches have hung in Norwegian kitchens because of Norwegians' traditional belief that the dolls have the power to keep pots from boiling over.

THE OPTIONS


• No antecedent for they
→ logically, they should refer to Norwegians or the Norwegians, but in this sentence Norwegian is an adjective that describes kitchens.
The pronoun they requires an antecedent that is a noun, not an adjective.
→ they cannot logically refer to dolls and thus has no antecedent
ELIMINATE A


• I do not see any errors
→ This sentence is an instance in which passive voice is appropriate.
We want to downplay agency (i.e., to downplay whoever actually and actively hung the dolls up) because the interesting facts are the dolls themselves and their traditional (but not real) powers.

ravigupta2912 , you wrote:

You are correct. Well done. The would create more effective rhetorical construction—more oomph (I have no idea how to translate that vernacular).
You are also correct that the task is not to find one perfect answer but rather to eliminate the four worst answers.
KEEP B


• wrong verb tense
→ For centuries is a Big Clue that this sentence should not be written in the simple present tense

→ simple present tense verbs hang and believe do not fit with the sense of past that the phrase "For centuries" conveys

-- If people have been doing something for a long time and still do so, use present perfect, which is used to bridge the past and present:
HAS/HAVE + past participle
have hung and have believed are the present perfect constructions

-- [→ Alternatively, if people had been doing something for a long time but stopped doing so, use past perfect (not the case here):
HAD + past participle]. See Notes.

• same missing antecedent problem as that in option A
ELIMINATE C

• verb problem
→ past perfect (had hung) is used to signal the earlier of two events in the past

→ in order to signal the earlier-in-time action, past perfect almost always requires at least one past tense verb or time marker that signals the later-in-time past action
No such verb exists here.
(This requirement does not hold when we deal with conditional Type 3 or Mixed Type. Both are rare on the GMAT.)

• serious style problem
→ the phrase it traditionally being believed is monstrously bad prose.

→ because of a traditional belief in option B (which is grammatical) is more concise and direct than it traditionally being believed

(It, BTW, does have an antecedent. The antecedent is the that-clause: that such figures . . . )
ELIMINATE D



• meaning problems
→ this sentence implies that the dolls themselves have been the ones believing that they have special powers. Ridiculous.

→ if dolls had such power, the correct construction would be because of THEIR traditionally believing that ...
The believing needs a someone or something to attach to: believing is an "action" noun.
-- Correct, news anchor: I appreciate your coming on the show.
-- Wrong, news anchor: I appreciate you coming on the show.

If you have no idea what I am talking about here, ignore me.
The issue is rarely tested and as is the case in this option, another error will probably exist.

• style problems
→ the dedicated noun belief is almost always preferred to the gerund (verbING) noun believing

→ who is doing this believing?
In option B, we have the dedicated noun belief.
This noun does not require a subject to "do" the noun. Belief is fine without a pronoun, possessive or otherwise.
ELIMINATE E

BY POE, THE ANSWER IS B

NOTES

• in option E, the verb have hung is grammatical.

→ to hang means to suspend or to BE suspended.

Below are three different examples of the way in which the verb to hang can be used.

→ Correct, present perfect:
Hundreds of colorful paper lanterns have hung in festive rows above the streets in Manhattan's Chinatown for a few weeks.

→ Correct, present perfect:
Manhattan's Chinatown civic leaders have hung hundreds of colorful paper lanterns above the streets in order to "signal joy and hope since it's been such a dark time for so many. . ."

→ Correct, present perfect:
Hundreds of colorful paper lanterns have been hung above the streets of Chinatown in Manhattan in order to "signal joy and hope."

• The original OE writer insists incorrectly that from the phrase "For centuries," you should immediately infer that present perfect is needed.

Seriously?

The OE writer is not 100 percent accurate.

What creates the conditions that require use of present perfect?
Answer: The phrase for centuries coupled with the nonunderlined present tense verb in that such figures HAVE the power to keep pots from boiling over.

I do not want to see aspirants conclude that phrases such as for centuries or for decades by themselves signal that present perfect is in order.
Those phrases by themselves do not necessarily signal present perfect.

Watch.

Correct, PAST perfect: For centuries, dolls dressed as witches had been hung in Norwegian kitchens because of a traditional belief that such figures had the power to keep pots from boiling over, but the King and Queen of Norway abolished the practice in the early 1900s after too many houses burned down.

Correct, PAST perfect: For centuries, hundreds of paintings had hung in the Rothschild brothers' palaces in Austria—until Hitler annexed Austria in 1938 and stole the prominent Jewish family's artwork for himself.

COMMENTS

shubhs76 , welcome to SC Butler.

A couple of these answers are a bit hard to follow, and a few assertions are not true.

Overall, though, the answers are pretty good.
Kudos to all.