GMAT CLUB OLYMPICS: For 800 years the smiths of the Kruijswijk Forge

"Hello, you absolute legends!" (Shoutout to Karl Jobst and his YouTube channel for producing fantastic video game analyses, even for someone who has a casual interest in the topic.)

Who does not love a fully underlined sentence once in a while? I, for one, would take a lot of underlined words any day over a single word or two, since the former type of question often presents several splits to consider. We find the same here.

Although I am not marking it as incorrect necessarily, there is a dual interpretation of the beginning of the sentence that may weaken its overall viability. Did you catch it? For 800 years the smiths... have created... Does this mean that the poor smiths have been laboring for 800 years? Real-life experience tells us that this is impossible, but the grammar does not rule it out. The first entirely incorrect element of the original sentence is a simple subject-verb agreement error: weaponry is a singular class of objects, but are indicates plurality: it should be is instead. Then, we have to consider what weaponry entails. The first two items in the list, swords and axes, certainly seem to qualify, and war hammers could maybe be shortened to hammers, but bells? That is an odd type of weapon. Sure, just about any object could be used as a weapon, but bells are not commonly classified as such, making this four-item list quite suspect.

Notice the same duality as before surrounding the smiths and their work. In fact, have been creating is actually worse than have created in the original sentence, since the latter at least implies an ending. The easiest target to my eye is the list, again labeling bells as weapons. Some people might comment on it in the modifier at the end of the sentence, but pronoun ambiguity is not an issue, since logic dictates that making weaponry one of the oldest continuously operating businesses is a nonsensical interpretation. It can only refer to the Kruijswijk Forge.

Now, the smiths have given way to the forge itself, and that leaves less room for confusion. The subject-verb agreement is fine: weaponry is thought to be of the highest quality. If you think that placing this information about the quality ahead of weaponry alters the meaning, remember, first, that only the non-underlined portion of a sentence is immutable, and this one, well, you can see for yourself what is not underlined; and second, a superlative can be used to discuss an entire category of items, and such a description is not typically hyphenated. For example, we could write, Burgundy produces the fullest bodied wines. Does this mean that no other place on earth can produce wines with such a full body? No, just that Burgundy is among such wine-producing regions, those that produce a certain quality of wine (a category of wines with the fullest body). Perhaps I am delving deeper into meaning and hyphenation than I need to, but in case any of you are curious...

Getting back to the sentence at hand, notice that the list has been broken up to convey something a little different. Now, only swords and axes are identified as weapons, and hammers and bells are just two other (presumably metal) objects that the forge produces. It is perfectly acceptable to create a list that has one or more branching elements: including W and X, Y, and Z. Finally, as discussed earlier, it at the end of the sentence refers to the forge, so this answer choice on the whole looks like a fine option.

I am not keen on the placement of in the former Hinterlands, which makes it sound as if the years have been passing by only in this location, but I can let that slide. A little later, though, we get our four-item list of apparent weapons again, and if that was not enough to dissuade you, what as a result is referring to is not at all clear. As a result of creating high-quality weaponry (note the hyphen in the compound adjective when it is not a superlative), the forge is one of the oldest? We would expect this commentary to be placed closer to the 800 years to create a more logical progression of ideas. When you start counting up the doubts, you have a compelling reason to go against an answer choice.

I like the direct approach this iteration takes in the beginning. My only concern is that the reintroduction of the smiths, along with have been creating... for 800 years, adds an element of ambiguity that is better avoided. Even have created would be an improvement, as discussed earlier.

In the end, the safest option is (C). This particular sentence offers a comment on the business, rather than the people within it. I know that some people are hesitant to select an answer with a phrase modifier at the end, but if it works, it works. You always want to choose the answer that is hardest to argue against.

Good luck with your studies.

- Andrew