For Ralph Waldo Emerson, transcendentalism was his professed ideal ove

Dear csaluja,

I'm happy to respond.

You are correct that (D) makes it seem that the environmental movement launched the book Silent Spring, which is the complete opposite of what happened: that critical and seminal classic was the flashpoint that began the modern environmental movement. That's one big problem with (D).

As for your question: you can't be narrowly literalist in interpreting language, because you will miss the living quality of language. In a hyper-literalist sense, yes, only people can argue, and a written work merely contains the argument put forth by a person, so the written work itself can't "argue." That is literally and logically true, and absolutely not how language is used. Real language is used by real people, and it is sometimes illogical, but that doesn't change that fact that it is used this way. Since the written work of an individual long dead, such as Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), is now the only way we will encounter the arguments of Emerson, it's natural to say that his writing, his essay, argues something. This is a perfectly valid use of language. Is it technically illogical? Yes, but that doesn't matter in the least.

My friend, if you take a purely mathematical, logical approach to language, you will miss the living quality of language, and the GMAT SC is all about recognizing this living quality, the way language in the real world is used to communicate real things. It would help you immensely to develop a habit of reading:
How to Improve Your GMAT Verbal Score

Does all this make sense?
Mike
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GMATNinja please explain why A is wrong. I am not satisfied with the above explanation that "and" should not be used to connect these two clauses. I can't find any problems with A. Thank you very much.

Dear trangtran2402,

I'm happy to respond.

I say that, while (C) is better, (A) is too close--there's not really enough wrong with it to be a definitively clear wrong answer. Both "launched" and "was launched" are valid uses of that verb: perhaps the former is slightly more direct and powerful because it's active. Similarly, linking the two long clauses with an "and" makes the whole sentence a little clunky: the semicolon divide in (C) is better. Having said all of this, (A) is not really "wrong" in the way that an incorrect choice would be wrong on the official GMAT SC.

Does this make sense?
Mike
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mikemcgarry
Thank you so much for your detailed explanation! Do these types of answers happen in real tests? If yes, how often? To tell the truth your explanation left me more confused, since if I encounter these answers I have to rely on my sense to decide which is better, and as you said they are too close, it means depending on luck then.

Hi trangtran2402!

I'm happy to jump in for Mike You should not see a question like this on the real test. As Mike said, there isn't really any that's definitively wrong about (A). That should not ever happen on the real exam -- the incorrect answers should always have a clear reason why they are incorrect. So you don't have to worry about making really subtle decisions like this one.

To develop this sense in general, though, I'd recommend reading as much as possible, as described in this post: How to Improve Your Verbal Score

I hope that's helpful!
-Carolyn
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hazelnut VeritasKarishma VeritasPrepHailey

Can you please elaborate a little as to why 'was launched' is incorrect in A

It's debatable whether 'was launched' is incorrect. As I said in my previous post, my issue is with 'and'.

For Ralph, T was his professed ideal ... before the AE movement was launched with SS, and he outlined his beliefs in his essay, “Nature,” ...

vs

For Ralph, T was his professed ideal ... before the AE movement launched with SS; he outlined his beliefs in his essay, “Nature,”

There isn't a good reason to combine the two sentences. With the semi colon, it's much cleaner.

Also, I would choose 'launched' over 'was launched' because it wasn't a formal launching. With 'was launched', it seems that the movement was launched officially by someone with Rachel's book. But it might be a bit more appropriate to say that the movement launched with the book.
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chetan2u could you please help with this query?

Hi,
Here if you look at the complete sentence, launched is not a verb but a modifier modifying the movement, ‘ the environmental movement’.

The sentence already has a verb was in A was his B over a century before ??
Now before can be followed by just a noun, and that is what choice C says , the environmental movement (launched with ..)
OR before can be followed by a clause, the environmental movement was launched..,,
The main fault in A is the usage of AND, but I would say although both launched and was launched are correct, launched is direct and may a slightly more appropriate.
Of course, when you have such a minor difference, there would be some bigger error too.
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It took me 3min 30sec i was happy in the end that i could nail down the right answer the fact of the matter being we have to nail down the right tense the noun should refer to the right person keeping all that bottlenecks in mind let us figure out the answer
A) was launched with Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, and he outlined his beliefs in his essay, “Nature,” arguing that man does not fully accept nature’s beauty and all that it has to offer.
arguing and accept are not in the same tense hence i eleminated

(B) launched itself with Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, and outlined his beliefs in his essay, “Nature,” which argued that man does not fully accept nature’s beauty and all that it offers.
it was not the environment that had launched the argument isn't clear

(C) launched with Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring; he outlined his beliefs in his essay, “Nature,” which argued that man does not fully accept nature’s beauty and all that it has to offer.
The tenses are in sync there is a relative clarity in the tenses let us hang on to this one

(D) launched Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring; Emerson outlined his beliefs in his essay, “Nature,” arguing that man does not fully accept nature’s beauty and all that it has to offer.
Afain same problem as A

(E) was launched with Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring; in it he outlined his beliefs in this essay, “Nature,” arguing that man does not fully accept nature’s beauty and all that it offers.
here too there is a tense problem for example arguing and offers are not in sync
Hence IMO C

Hello,

I have a query here.
I am confused on how to reject Choice A.

I see the sentence structure as below:
For Ralph Waldo Emerson, transcendentalism was his professed ideal over a century before
the contemporary American environmental movement was launched with Rachel Carson???s Silent Spring,
and he outlined his beliefs in his essay, ???Nature,???
arguing that man does not fully accept
nature???s beauty
and all that it has to offer.

'the contemporary...' and 'he outlined...' can be treated a sparallel here.

'the contemporary American environmental movement was launched' also does not seems wrong, since a movement can be launched.

Could you please explain where I am going wrong?

Thanks and Regards,
Ankit

I have one question.

"Nature’s beauty and all that it has to offer."

Nature's beauty - so beauty is the noun and nature is in possessive. So how can "it" (a pronoun) refer back to a possessive?

To answer this within a few seconds, check the beginning of each option:
In B, ‘launched itself’ is incorrect since a movement can’t launch itself.
In D, ‘launched Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring..’ is incorrect because a movement cannot launch a book/essay.
Coming to E, the part after ; should exist as an individual sentence but the ‘it’ just after ; makes the option incorrect.
In A, the ‘and’ breaks the link between the cause and effect and makes it sound as if the movement and outlining of his beliefs are two different things.
Hence C is correct.

Hope it helps