Goldings most famous novel concerns little boys, once a

Question

Golding’s most famous novel concerns little boys,  once a well–behaved and civilized group, whose  resort to murder and savagery during their brief time on a tropical island without adult supervision

A. once a well–behaved and civilized group, whose
B. once well–behaved and civilized, who then
C. once a well–behaved and civilized group, who
D. once well–civilized and well-behaved, whose
E. behaved and civilized, who

sonnco · Answer

Can someone tell me why B is not a valid choice? I know C is the right answer, but I can't put my finger on why B is wrong.

nov79 · Answer

The solution is simple:
Try putting they instead of who, of their instead of whose.

The correct answer is C.

USCTrojan2006 · Answer

Seems like who/whose should be modifying little boys. That's how I got who.

amma4u · Answer

Golding’s most famous novel concerns little boys,  once a well–behaved and civilized group, whose  resort to murder and savagery during their brief time on a tropical island without adult supervision

once a well–behaved and civilized group, whose - whose is the incorrect pronoun. 
once well–behaved and civilized, who then - awkward
 once a well–behaved and civilized group, who - "a" correctly address the singular collective noun "group" and "who" is the correct pronoun..it refers to "people" 
once well–civilized and well-behaved, whose - same as A
behaved and civilized, who - bad!

shrive555 · Answer

Then  indicates the sequence of the  events , Murder & savagery occurred during the stay on the island. we don't know what happened before. well behaved and civilized ain't events.
hope it helps

gettinit · Answer

who is behaved and civilized - wrong

MBAhereIcome · Answer

the answer is actually B . i've pasted the explanation of Mitch Hunt, a gmat instructor.

n A and D, the subject boys lacks a verb, resulting in a sentence fragment. Eliminate A and D.

E changes the meaning. Omitting once implies that the boys are behaved and civilized when they resort to murder. The intended meaning is that the boys were once well-behaved and civilized but are not well-behaved and civilized when they resort to murder. Eliminate E.

In C, the introduction of herd changes the meaning. Also, the referent of who is unclear. Who seems to refer -- incorrectly -- to herd, but the plural pronoun their implies that who refers to boys. If the referent of a pronoun is unclear, and another answer choice avoids the ambiguity, eliminate the answer choice with the ambiguity. Eliminate C.

The correct answer is B.

Please note that the SC above does not have the feel of a real GMAT SC. The differences among the answer choices are too subtle.

crick20002002 · Answer

+1 for B.

C treats  the little boys as a group . Hence the usage of plural pronoun (their) is incorrect.

Crick

sleepynut · Answer

Hi experts,
Please share your thoughts with this question.
IMHO,there is a problem with pronoun "who".Which noun it modifies?Is it "group" or "boys".Should it be the latter as we have plural possessive pronoun "their"?

Thanks

Mimster · Answer

Hey! First of all, I think this is a bad question and is not from the GMAT guys. From my knowledge, who immediately attaches itself to the word before the comma so it may modify group. however, in this case I think it's more logical to say it attached to boys - meaning wise. Despite what who modifies, the error here is not what who is supposed to attach itself to as 'resort' is in the plural form and not singular. Therefore, the usage debate should be thrown out.

Now let look at the word whose. 'Whose' functions as a possessive relative pronoun... this means you can simply replace whose with either group's or boys'. Once you replace the relative pronoun, you would realize that the sentence is fragmented and it doesn't make sense to just say

Golding’s most famous  novel concerns little boys (S + V = independent clause) , once a well–behaved and civilized group,  
 whose = boys'  resort to murder and savagery during their brief time on a tropical island without adult supervision. (S only = fragment)

boys' resort (noun)... where the heck is the verb?

The lessons from this question are 1) stick to the original meaning (eliminating BCE) and 2) stick to the basic sentence construction of S + V = independent clause.

sayantanc2k · Answer

It does not matter - "little boys" IS the "group". Hence there is no ambiguity with the meaning.

(Coming to your query, "who" must refer to people - a group is not same as the people in it. Hence strictly speaking, "who" cannot refer to a group.)

Bunuel · Answer

Official Explanation

B. Choice B is grammatically correct and economical. In choice C, herd introduces a meaning not in the original, while choice E omits details. Choices A and D are sentence fragments.

VerbalBot · Answer

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Goldings most famous novel concerns little boys, once a

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GMAT Sentence Correction (SC - EA only) Questions

Goldings most famous novel concerns little boys, once a

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