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GMATNinja, thank you for providing explanation for C. Can you please also clarify why B should be eliminated?
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GMATNinja please could you tell me why (E) is incorrect? Is it just because of concision? Or is there any real grammar or meaning error?
Mostly meaning. Take another look at (E):

Quote:
In 1776 Adam Smith wrote that it is young people who are the ones to have “the contempt of risk and the presumptuous hope of success” needed to found new businesses.
The phrase in red is, at best, confusing. Typically "the ones to have" would refer to the things that are best to possess:

    "Did Tim want the Lakers tickets or the Thunder tickets? Because the Thunder have Lu Dort, the Thunder tickets are the ones to have."

But that makes no sense here. No one is going to possess these young people. Also, the phrase, "to have" suggests a theoretical situation. The best tickets to have are ones you don't own yet. Does that mean we're talking about young people who don't yet have the contempt of risk? Nah.

If we get rid of the "to", it's clear that Smith is referring to young people who already have the contempt of risk. So (A) isn't just more concise. It's clearer and more logical, and therefore better.

I hope that helps!
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sayantanc2k , chetan2u

Can you explain this one in detail. i cannot understand this .

In 1776 Adam Smith wrote that it is young people who have “the contempt of risk and the presumptuous hope of success” <Dont we need a verb here. it seems incomplete to read> needed to found new businesses.


Hello goforgmat,

I will be glad to help you out with this one. :-)

In 1776 Adam Smith wrote that it is young people who have “the contempt of risk and the presumptuous hope of success” needed to found new businesses.

Let's first understand the meaning of this sentence. The sentence intends to say that Adam Smith wrote something in 1776. What did he write?

He wrote that young people possess two qualities (if I may): “the contempt of risk and the presumptuous hope of success”. What is the significance of these two qualities.

These two qualities are required to found = establish new businesses.

Now let's come to the grammar part of it.

In the above-mentioned sentence, the subjects are highlighted in blue while the verbs are in green. All the subjects have appropriate verbs.

Please note that the word needed is a verb-ed modifier that further explains “the contempt of risk and the presumptuous hope of success”.

We do not need anymore verbs in the sentence as there are no subjects with missing verbs.

We may expand this sentence as In 1776 Adam Smith wrote that it is young people who have “the contempt of risk and the presumptuous hope of success” that are needed to found new businesses.

The added that clause is just the expanded version of the original sentence. We actually derive verb-ed modifiers in this way by removing the subject and the helping verb.

You can read our very famous article named ED FORMS - Verbs or Modifiers to learn how to distinguish between a verb-ed modifier and a simple past tense verb in the following link:
https://gmatclub.com/forum/ed-forms-verbs-or-modifiers-134691.html


Hope this helps. :-)
Thanks.
Shraddha


What is wrong in B) & C) below


Simplifying this:

A) In 1776 Adam Smith wrote that it is young people who have “the contempt of risk and the presumptuous hope of success” that are needed to found new businesses.

B) In 1776 Adam Smith wrote that it is young people with “the contempt of risk and the presumptuous hope of success” that are needed to found new businesses.

C) In 1776 Adam Smith wrote that it is young people having “the contempt of risk and the presumptuous hope of success” that are needed to found new businesses.
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MartyTargetTestPrep
why option B is incorrect?
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why option B is incorrect?
Here's the (B) version.

In 1776 Adam Smith wrote that it is young people with “the contempt of risk and the presumptuous hope of success” needed to found new businesses.

Notice that the (B) version says that Adam Smith wrote, basically, "it is young people with x," as if to say that some unknown "it" is young people with contempt and hope. We can see that the sentence doesn't communicate much of anything.

When we read the (B) version, we can get the impression that it says that it is young people with “the contempt of risk and the presumptuous hope of success” WHO ARE needed to found new businesses, but it doesn't really succeed in saying that.
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why option B is incorrect?

Hello saby1410,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, Option B fails to form a complete sentence; as "needed" is a noun modifier, there is no active verb to act upon the subject noun "young people".

We hope this helps.
All the best!
Experts' Global Team.
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Can you please explain why option C fails to form a complete sentence? Option A is a modifier of "young people," and option C also modifies "young people." The sentence already has a main verb, so how does the sentence become incomplete with option C? Furthermore, there is no comma between "young people" and "having," so "having" modifies not the entire clause but "young people." So, what is the problem with option C?
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idilbayar
Can you please explain why option C fails to form a complete sentence? Option A is a modifier of "young people," and option C also modifies "young people." The sentence already has a main verb, so how does the sentence become incomplete with option C? Furthermore, there is no comma between "young people" and "having," so "having" modifies not the entire clause but "young people." So, what is the problem with option C?
Hi idilbayar,

You've correctly pointed out that who have... and having... are both modifiers. In this case however, we must also take the dummy pronoun it into account. The whole thing ends up looking like this:

\(It_{\textrm{[dummy]}}\ is/was_{\textrm{[}be\textrm{-form]}}\ X_{\textrm{[noun]}}\ who/that_{\textrm{[relative]}}\)

This structure can be used to add emphasis, and that's what the author is trying to do here.

Option C does lead to a sentence with a subject and verb, but it's incomplete in a different way: if it becomes a normal pronoun, there's nothing in the sentence for it to refer to (meaning error).

1. It is phones having touchscreens. ← What does the it refer to in "It is {phones having touchscreens}"?
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idilbayar
Can you please explain why option C fails to form a complete sentence? Option A is a modifier of "young people," and option C also modifies "young people." The sentence already has a main verb, so how does the sentence become incomplete with option C? Furthermore, there is no comma between "young people" and "having," so "having" modifies not the entire clause but "young people." So, what is the problem with option C?

We attempted to address this question earlier in the thread. Check it out here: https://gmatclub.com/forum/in-1776-adam ... l#p2276512.
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