Gen. Joseph Hooker initially seized the advantage at the Battle of Cha

Question

Gen. Joseph Hooker initially seized the advantage at the Battle of Chancellorsville, but despite having an army twice the size of Gen. Lee's confederates, he lost his nerve and settled into a more defensive posture,  with the result that his army would suffer  a humiliating defeat.

A. with the result that his army would suffer

B. eventually with his army suffering

C. and as a result, his army eventually would suffer

D. his army eventually suffering

E. which eventually caused his army to suffer

Hi  mikemcgarry

Here is a question from Magoosh practice, would you please introduce more usage of "WOULD"

I don't understand the usage of " WOULD " in answer A and C is correct, as I know, " WOULD " can be used 
#1 as past tense of " will "
Eg: She said she would finish the task.

#2 to describe the low possibility in conditionals
Eg: If I had worked harder, I would have passed the exam

I think " WOULD " is used neither of two above, 
Did I miss something, please introduce/clarify

Thanks in advance
have a nice day

Zoe
>_~

mikemcgarry · Accepted Answer

Dear zoezhuyan , How are you, my friend?

I'm happy to help you.

My friend, I may have said this to you before, but there are two basic approaches to GMAT Verbal, especially SC. Approach #1 = rule-based (learn all the rules of grammar and apply those rules) Approach #2 = develop intuition derived from extensive experience Approach #1 appears shorter and many non-native speakers try to pursue #1 and avoid #2. The problem is that Approach #1 will NEVER result in GMAT SC mastery. In fact, students naively think that the GMAT SC tests grammar, but that is short-sighted. The GMAT SC tests the way that grammar and logic and rhetoric all come together to produce meaning : it's about all of that, not just about grammar in isolation. Approach #2 is much longer, involving much more time and energy and focus, but this is ultimately the best way to arrive at a high performance in GMAT Verbal. See: How to Improve Your GMAT Verbal Score Developing a consistent habit of reading and challenging yourself each and every day to read high-level English material from topics that are not familiar to you will be the best way to develop intuition over time. In this particular instance, you understand the rule itself perfectly, but you don't have enough of a "feel" for the language to realize that you are not applying the rule correctly. Let's look at (C), the OA: Gen. Joseph Hooker initially seized the advantage at the Battle of Chancellorsville, but despite having an army twice the size of Gen. Lee's confederates, he lost his nerve and settled into a more defensive posture, and as a result, his army eventually would suffer a humiliating defeat . This is a correct use of rule #1, the past tense of " will ." The focus of the sentence is what we might call the "set-up" or initial phases of the Battle of Chancellorsville . (BTW, that entire Wikipedia article would be an excellent example of something you could read for practice!!) The time period on which the sentence focuses is the beginning of this battle, so from that perspective, the end of the battle would be something in the future. If a "fortune teller" had met Gen. Hooker at the beginning of the battle, this fortune teller might have told him " Your army will suffer a humiliating defeat ." From that particular time, the defeat would have been in the future. Since the time on which the sentence is focused is in the past, the future of that past event, which is now another past event, is denoted with " would ." Does all this make sense? Take care, my friend! Mike

mnav · Answer

IMO E

Parallelism:
He lost his nerve & settled into a more defensive posture, which eventually caused his army to suffer
2 statements in past tense in only option E, hence all others can be ruled out

Sent from my Lenovo X3a40 using  GMAT Club Forum mobile app

sudarshan22 · Answer

+1 for   D  .

A.  with  the result that his army  would  suffer
B.  eventually  with his army suffering 
C. and as a result, his army eventually  would suffer 
D. his army  eventually suffering   -->   Correct  
Gen. Joseph Hooker  initially seized ,......., he  lost  his nerve and  settled  into a more defensive posture, his army  eventually suffering  ...
E.  which  eventually caused his army  to suffer

Hence,   D  .

Mick1005 · Answer

IMO C:
A: With the result is wrong. Need to attach two independent clauses with something better.
B:Don't like  -ing in it. Suffering is not continuing.
C: Looks fine.
D:Wrong construction. Need a connector after comma. Same problem ab B with Verb-ing
E:Which is modifying posture so wrong.

rahulkashyap · Answer

hwo can the ans be D?

the suffering is something that happened later on and in D, it is presented as an ING modifier which needs to be in the same time frame as the main verb.

chetan2u

If this isnt an ING modifier, what sort of modifier is it?

chetan2u · Answer

rahulkashyap , 
few points:-

1) Verb+ing modifier is not related to tense or a time frame. it's role would depend on COMMA 
if there is a comma, the modifier tells us about the preceding clause 
he worked very hard, ensuring the .....
if there is NO comma, it modifies the preceding noun, as in this case
his army eventually SUFFERING.......
SO the modifier is modifying ARMY here
 Then what about : " his army eventually......" here we come to the point two

2) "his army eventually suffering ....." is a NOUN modifier which is modifying the NOUN of the preceding clause.. 
something like :- his head held high, he walked into the rome.
But here it is not supposed to be acting in that way, because the phrase is the RESULT of preceding clause and is NOT to modify a noun.

For the above reason, although usage of suffering is ok, the choice D itself is wrong

so what should be the OA 
C.and as a result, his army eventually would suffer 
Now here we are talking of his defensive posture THAT would ultimately result in his defeat..
so WOULD is correctly used to talk of a future of event that si already over..
As a result - conveys the meaning correctly

ans C

Bunuel  could you please check OA for typo, it should be C

Gmat800Champ · Answer

B. eventually with his army suffering 
Is B not correct? previous clause action i.e. the defensive posture resulted in the loss?

chetan2u · Answer

Hi..

Reasons for B to be wrong..
1) placement of EVENTUALLY:- eventually should be close to suffering as logically here it should modify suffering. eventually suffering ....
2) second and the main reason is structure - with+noun+participle
There are many instances where this structure is not correct in OG. This structure cannot modify the preceding clause as it does here. It can at themax be used as adding some details on the subject of the main clause.

chetan2u · Answer

ankit,

WHICH is used to refer to noun but here we are talking of result of entire clause, so E is clearly out

Now for the usage of WOULD

WOULD is past-tense of WILL. 
It is used to indicate future of a past event and this future event could also have finished.

now specific to this example

Gen. Joseph Hooker initially seized the advantage at the Battle of Chancellorsville, but despite having an army twice the size of Gen. Lee's confederates, he lost his nerve and settled into a more defensive posture, with the result that his army would suffer a humiliating defeat.

Ofcourse, we could have written the last clause - with....- as a modifier too modifying the previous clause BUT there is no such choice fitting the bill.
and also use of WOULD is justified here. We are talking of two clause joined by BUT and the time we are talking of is When he lost his nerve..... 
AND the defeat is thereafter so FUTURE of the event of his losing nerves.- so would is ok

for example
he was born in a poor family, but no one knew that one day he would be a millionaire

Helium · Answer

chetan2u mikemcgarry generis broall VeritasKarishma GMATNinja

Can you please have look at question below:

https://gmatclub.com/forum/gen-joseph-h ... l#p2135008

In wake of this it seems choice D can also be the correct answer...

gvij2017

generis · Answer

Harshgmat  , I agree. Nice catch.
We have two slightly different versions of this question.
  The version on  this  thread is introduced in green typeface.  
  The version on the  other  thread is introduced in blue typeface.  I think that  this  version of the question has two answers, C and D.

•   I think this version of the question has two answers: C and D  
The word "eventually" in option (D) signals the correct logical sequence.

• The (D) options in both questions are identical.
The other question has a long explanation, some of which is quoted below. D is the answer to the other question.

(C) in the other question is slightly different from this thread's (C)
(C) in the other thread is clearly wrong. No question.

On THIS topic thread, I see no reason to prefer C over D. 
 
True, participial modifiers do not carry tense, but "his army  eventually  suffering" indicates the future.
Hooker's loss of nerve and choice of defensive posture caused his army eventually to suffer.

The other thread's version of the question,  HERE  is:   
 
  Between C and D: Official explanation BY MIKE MCGARRY for the question from the other thread

The version of the question on THIS thread

Something appears to be wrong.

This version could be the edited version of the other thread's question.
Maybe the word "eventually" was supposed to have been removed from option D for this thread's version.

MagooshExpert  ,  would you please have a look at the two versions of this question?

Once again, the full OE for the other question in which D is identical to this D and correct in that answer  HERE

If option C is a better answer than option D for this thread's version of the question,
would you please explain why?

GMATNinja  or  GMATNinja 2 -- thoughts?

MagooshExpert · Answer

Hi generis , I'm sorry about all of the confusion surrounding this question! The original version of this question was flawed, and has since been modified. A corrected version of this question, as well as a full explanation, can be found HERE . Please refer to that version and explanation instead

I hope that helps!

-Carolyn

wukong007 · Answer

E: I thought which can be used to refer the whole sentence ahead of it, but GMAT doesn't like that. I guess as it is confusing if the sentence ends with noun.

Incorrect:
Vacation is coming soon, which is nice. (What is nice, the vacation or the fact that it is coming soon?)

Sort of Okay to use which:

The movie turned out to be a blockbuster hit, which came as a surprise to critics.

My friend eventually decided to get divorced, which upset me a lot.

Rachna23 · Answer

GMATNinja

Can you please explain the use of 'with the result that' as compared to the use of 'as a result'. I am not sure if this is the reason for eliminating A. To me, A looks similar to C (except that the word 'eventually' is missing in A).

In another question, OA is B which uses the phrase  with the result that

https://gmatclub.com/forum/because-the-body-adapts-more-readily-to-lengthened-days-than-to-shorte-216678.html

Jashan93 · Answer

The intended meaning of this question is so confusing.
I opted for E, but the OA is C

newyork2012 · Answer

Eventually ? As a result ? 
No repetition?

Posted from my mobile device

Julie725 · Answer

I'm not sure I completely agree with Mike's explanation. Because if the timing was set in the initial stage, hinted by "initically", then it should be "Gen. Joseph Hooker HAD initially seized the advantage at the Battle of Chancellorsville,". But all of the verbs in the sentense are in the same simple past tense, so "would" just seems very abrupt and introduced by no cue.

I pick E. "The defensive posture caused the defeat", makes perfect sense.

I pick E. "The defensive posture caused the defeat", makes perfect sense.

ExpertsGlobal5 · Answer

Hello  Julie725 ,

We hope this finds you well.

To clarify, "would" is also used to refer to a past action from a point in time further in the past; for example, "When I left, I did not realize I would be late."

We hope this helps.
All the best!
Experts' Global Team

Gen. Joseph Hooker initially seized the advantage at the Battle of Cha

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