A gr8 Q.
Straight into my log.(+1).

My 2 cents:
His campaign for sanitary conditions in operating rooms finally successful, Sir Joseph Lister lent his name to the company that developed Listerine, the first antibacterial liquid.

A. His campaign for sanitary conditions in operating rooms finally successful
[ This option misses the verb, thus it can only act as a modifier to something. So here
it does modify Sir Lister. Its less expensive and clear]

B. Since his campaign for sanitary conditions in operating rooms had been eventually successful
C. Because of the eventual success of his campaigning for sanitary conditions in operating rooms
[ B and C try to use
Because/Since IC, IC kind of format. Which can also be correct ( I don't agree to people who say
it is not a cause-effect relation). But B uses "had been" were simple past can be used. And C uses
campaigning - campaign it self suggest a on going process. "of his campaigning" is akward.]
Even if B and C would have been correct, they are wordier than A !!
D. His campaign for sanitary conditions in operating rooms being eventually successful
[ being ]
E. Campaigning, eventually successfully, for conditions to be sanitary in operating rooms
[ changes the meaning of the sentence]

The opening phrase in this question uses what is called an Absolute Phrase. It's a straight A once one understands the concepts behind Absolute constructions..

Google Absolute Phrase to learn more.

His campaign for sanitary conditions in operating rooms finally successful, Sir Joseph Lister lent his name to the company that developed Listerine, the first antibacterial liquid.

(A) His campaign for sanitary conditions in operating rooms finally successful
(B) Since his campaign for sanitary conditions in operating rooms had been eventually successful
(C) Because of the eventual success of his campaigning for sanitary conditions in operating rooms
(D) His campaign for sanitary conditions in operating rooms being eventually successful
(E) Campaigning, eventually successfully, for conditions to be sanitary in operating rooms

Hi,
I have been using the Manhattan GMAT SC book, and they suggest to use the "Splits and Re-splits" method. Through this system, you have to scan the answer choices vertically - without read them - looking for differences that split the answer choices.
After that, you have to eliminate the splits which are wrong.

Ok, probably that method is Ok when you have a question in which the answer choices only are different in certain words, but what to do when you face a question like this? Anyone who is using the MGMAT SC, please? How effective is that approach when the choices are totally different?
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This scanning method many times goes wrong for me because most of the time instead of looking for the best answer and without understanding question completely, I go for differences in the options and end up with some wrong answer. Here Choice A has perfect grammar but it is not going with the remaining sentence.

According to me one has to understand the what part is underlined portion is playing and what does it mean

For example, In the given question the underlined part is an dependent clause and it is also a cause for some information mentioned after underlined part.

Therefore, we have to search for an answer that will show reason. Now if we scan the answers we can understand that choices A, D, and E can stand there own except pronoun, but they are independent clauses and not really forming a reason for why Sir Joseph Lister lent his name to the company that developed Listerine.
So, we can short list choices B and C

Now, if we scan further then we can make out that choice C contains "success of his campaigningfor sanitary" .... Unnecessary use of progressive tense .... so we can finalize on choice "B"

Also, Choice "B" is forming a cause or reason for the further statement and it is using perfect past tense that shows us that this action is happened before Sir Joseph Lister give his name to antibacterial liquid.
A rule is mentioned in manhattan sentence correction that "If more than one action in a sentence occurred at different times in the past, you must use the past perfect tense for the earlier action and simple past for later action".


This is my view, please correct me if i m wrong. And please mention OA of the question.

Really great question here, metallicafan!

The scanning method does tend to work a little bit better when you have just a word or two that is changed. In this problem, you have a large part of the sentence that gets changed or shifted around. I would argue that:

1) This is often indicative of a modifier issue, so you might want to be on the lookout for modifier problems.

2) The split-resplit method doesn't work particularly well here not because you have a large part of a sentence underlined, but because you have a five-way split. This happens every now and then, and as others in this forum have shared, it's why we need to bother learning the grammar rather than trying to rely purely on tricks.

Great question! I love that you're thinking about the limitations of the strategies you see!


Quick note here about the "meaning" issue mentioned in several posts on this thread:

Keep in mind that "meaning" is not as important on SC as "grammar." Grammar is king, and meaning is only a secondary consideration. For those of you who rule out answer choices because of a meaning issue: Did you find grammatical issues wrong with them first? If not, beware of crossing them off.

Furthermore: While I agree that B and C change the meaning by making a more explicit causal link between the successful campaign and the naming right, the real deal with "meaning" on SC is not "does it change in meaning?" as much as it is "Is the meaning logical?"

For example, if A says:

"Yesterday, I walked to that pizza restaurant that was built in 1947."

And one of your answer choices says:

"In 1947, I walked to new pizza restaurant that was built yesterday."

Then you have a problem because it's illogical and nonsensical to say you walked to something that wasn't yet built.

Brett

Responding to why (A) is not wrong:

Take a look at that first part of the sentence before the comma:

"His campaign for sanitary conditions in operating rooms finally successful"

--notice it is NOT a complete sentence.

So since it is not a complete sentence, it must be a descriptive phrase. What does that descriptive phrase modify?

It modifies Sir Joseph Lister.

We can confirm this with the word "HIS" -which must reference that person.

Cut the fluff and read it like this:

"His campaign finally successful, Sir Joseph did blah blah blah.."

Likewise:

"His GMAT studies finally complete, Abhay went out and partied."--same idea - it's fine.

http://www.gmatpill.com/gmat-practice-t ... stion/3189

Hi egmat / VeritasPrepKarishma / EMPOWERgmatRichC - can you please share your analysis and explanation for this qs ?

And is it an Official Question ?

P.S: Any Other Verbal Experts in the Club - feel free to shed light. Thank you!
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Hi bagdbmba,

I'd be happy to chime in here:

For easy reference, here's the question again:
His campaign for sanitary conditions in operating rooms finally successful, Sir Joseph Lister lent his name to the company that developed Listerine, the first antibacterial liquid.
(A) His campaign for sanitary conditions in operating rooms finally successful
(B) Since his campaign for sanitary conditions in operating rooms had been eventually successful
(C) Because of the eventual success of his campaigning for sanitary conditions in operating rooms
(D) His campaign for sanitary conditions in operating rooms being eventually successful
(E) Campaigning, eventually successfully, for conditions to be sanitary in operating rooms

User Response Data: A 23% B 33% C 22% D 14% E 7%


The Source, and The Bigger GMAT Picture
This is a very odd question. Official GMAT questions are designed so that the right answer gets more votes than any other, there will be a runner-up option, and 3 lesser selected options. Here, there are TWO options either at par or even more selected than the right answer. That makes me a little skeptical that this is an official question (although I could not confirm a source, so we have to leave in the possibility that it’s official). At Beat the GMAT, it's cited as a Princeton Review question, but after Googling the question, I saw that GMAT Pill appears to be offering the question on its platform too. Very unclear.

Analysis:
Now to the question: what is the author trying to convey? Sir Joseph Lister’s campaign for sanitary conditions in operating rooms was finally successful (implying a challenge). At which point, he lent his name to the company that developed Listerine.

Options A, B, and C, received about 80% of the vote, so our discussion needs to center on options A, B, and C.
In the original sentence, check out this clause that appears before the comma. Notice that it serves as a modifier. With modifiers, we can use something we call the What Is/Who is? test. Whose campaign was finally successful? What does that clause modify? Sir Joseph Lister. That modifier is correct. It was Joseph Lister’s campaign.

When we’re dealing with modifiers, chucking the filler provides amazing clarity, especially with awkward sentences like this.
Dump the filler: His campaign successful, Joseph Lister lent his name. Totally fine. Although the original sentence sounds AWFUL to the ears and looks HORRENDOUS to the eyes, it’s amazing how the filler can contort things to make the good sound bad. The option is just fine.

Now to B (which is the most selected option):

Since – Since slightly alters the author’s intentions. “Since” implies that lending his name was dependent on the condition of campaign success. However, the author is saying that Lister lent his name after that event happened more as a matter of circumstance than a matter of some sort of mandate or condition.
Had Been – There is ZERO reason to use past-perfect here. Past-perfect refers to the first of two events that CONCLUDED in the past. The campaigns success, and the lending of the name are both ongoing or events (or at best the temporal relationship is too unclear to assign past-perfect since the original option doesn’t indicate that we’re referring to two events that concluded in the past).

Let’s wrap up with options D and E:
D) The GMAT frowns on a gratuitous mid-clausal BEING verb. It would be a thunderclap of an event for a mid-clause BEING to be correct on the GMAT. Note that BEING is just fine in official questions if used as a connector (at the beginning of a sentence, or after a comma). This BEING in D has no business being here. Dump D fast.

E) Is a calamity. It’s choppy, it’s awkward, and it’s what we like to call a Jumbler. You’ll see these on your GMAT: jumbled throw away answers that appear almost as though the test-writers just needed to full an option.
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Generally, the term eventually implies that something happened because of an event, here the campaign or campaigning. It is not the same as terming it ‘finally’, which means that the campaign was successful at last.

One clue to the solving this question is to realize that there is no cause and effect relationship here
The successful campaign and his lending his name are two independent factors, the second being the core of the issue while the first campaign itself is an additional factor. So let’s first eliminate B and C.

In E, ‘for conditions to be sanitary’ is way off the mark of the intended ‘sanitary conditions’.

D is eliminated for the dubious use of ‘being’ as a modifier for the noun ‘campaign’.

A survives.
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Does option A doesn't viloates the Rule - two independent clauses must be separated by Semicolon or Comma+FANBOYS.

Pls explain
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The two clauses in A are not independent..

the first clause is an absolute modifier that is, a entire phrase is modifying the noun "Sir Joseph Lister"..
slightly easier setence folloeing the same rule..
his opponents defeated, Ashoka expanded the mauryan empire to entire India..


Moreover, A is not a complete sentence..
(A) His campaign for sanitary conditions in operating rooms finally successful.
it would be a complete sentence if it read ..
(A) His campaign for sanitary conditions in operating rooms was finally successful.
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There is a whale of a difference in meaning between 'finally' and 'eventually'. To use eventually, there must be an event before that was the cause of the description. Finally means at last, and in a sense, after some repeated attempts. Normally, they are not interchangeable.

However, this is a peculiar case. Since, there was a solid event such as a campaign, eventually may be acceptable. At the same time, we cannot also fault “ finally’, as the meaning conveyed here is that the campaign met with success after some protracted effort. Therefore, interchanging ‘eventually’ for ‘finally’ in this context may not be so critical as other fatal flaws that one can find to dislodge B and E. Yet, it could have been avoided.
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His campaign for sanitary conditions in operating rooms finally successful, Sir Joseph Lister lent his name to the company that developed Listerine, the first antibacterial liquid.

Hi, thanks for pointing out the difference between eventually and finally.
My question is, the opening modifier "His campaign for sanitary conditions in operating rooms finally successful" is modifying what Sir JL? The question one would ask based on the modifier is "who campaign?" and the answer will be "Sir JL's" NOT "Sir JL".

Please advice! Thanks in advance!

..

Hi,
If I have understood your query clearly..

his campaign would be sir JL's campaign...
but the reference of the 'his' in 'his campaign' is clearly pointing towards to sir JL..

His campaign for sanitary conditions in operating rooms finally successful, Sir Joseph Lister lent his name to the company that developed Listerine, the first antibacterial liquid.

So all the possesive pronouns are refering back correctly to Sir JL..

some more example..
his head held high, ram entered the room.
Her mood upbeat, cherry easily won over her opponents..
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is this a dangling modifier as i see no verb in it and was hard to go for option A. Is B logicaly sound if we ignore the fact that its wordy compared to option A.

The underlined portion in option A is an absolute phrase modifier.

Following is an excerpt from Manhattan SC guide:

A few GMAT sentences use a sophisticated modifier called an Absolute Phrase. Absolute phrases are composed of a noun plus a noun modifier. These phrases do not have to modify what they touch; rather, they modify the main clause in some way.

Right: His head held high, Owen walked out of the store.

The noun (noun phrase), His head, and the noun modifier, held high, together forms an absolute phrase modifying the whole main clause (Owen walked out of the store).

Similarly, the absolute phrase in option A consists of the following:
Noun (noun phrase): His campaign for sanitary conditions in operating rooms
Noun modifier: finally successful

Thus option A is alright.

Please help how Choice A is the correct choice? In other posts, I saw that first phrase is an absolute modifier in choice A, but I am not convinced.

I selected choice C.

Option C does not make any sense. The cause and effect events have been reversed in option C - because Sir Joseph lent his name, the campaign was successful, not the other way round. The success came later ("eventual").

In A the first part is an absolute phrase:
https://gmatclub.com/forum/his-campaign ... l#p1814499

In case you are not convinced, please mention specifically why do you think it is not an absolute phrase.

Thanks sayantanc2k,
As you mentioned in the previous post--

absolute phrase = noun + noun modifier
His head held high, Owen walked out of the store
"held high" is modifying his head

At first glance of the given question, it seems that the main verb is removed from the first part of the sentence(His campaign for sanitary conditions in operating rooms finally successful). First part did not seem to be absolute modifier because noun modifiers for absolute modifiers are generally verbing/verbed phrases or subordinate clauses (with relative pronoun). Noun modifier in this example seems awkward. However, noun modifier, in this example, is just an adjective modifying the "campaign"

Noun (noun phrase): His campaign for sanitary conditions in operating rooms
Noun modifier: finally successful

How did you determine that because Sir Joseph lent his name, the campaign was successful?

I could not establish cause and effect relationship.
How did I try to understand the question-- his campaign for X successful, he did Y. I could not determine which event (X or Y) occurs first.
1. His campaign for X was successful, that's why he did Y
2. He did y, that's why his campaign was successful.