In 1791 Robert Carter III, one of the wealthiest plantation owners in

Putting 'and' as the start of the second clause separates the act of separation from the deed of emancipation, and that is clearly not the case, eliminating C, D and E.

B is incorrect because "more than the 500 slaves" seems to imply that his deed of emancipation freed some slaves that were not his legally. "The more than 500 slaves" clearly points that all freed slaves were considered his legally.

thanks for the response RGM.

I understand your reasoning of 'and' for 'C' and 'D' but in 'E' isn't a separate independent clause started? which should be acceptable?

Leaving aside the unidiomatic B, C and E, and between A and D, let us get the gist of the matter. The question here is whether he stunned first and then set free the more than 500, as made out in D or he stunned, filed and set free the slaves, all in one action, as pointed in the text. IMO. D substantially alters the intent by a wrong order. Of course the determiner - the - is indeed vital to mean that he released all those under his custody, not leaving out any one. A is the clear choice by logic.

"Setting Free the more than 500" ! Does not tis sound weird ? I went with option B.

I answered this question wrong because I was not aware of the meaning of "Emancipation"

I thought this question has 2 clauses:
1. stunned his family, friends, and neighbors by filing a deed of emancipation
2. setting free the more than 500 slaves who were legally considered his property

Logically, to join two clauses, you choose an option with "and".

I chose the option (D) because it has the right idiom "Considered" but when I chose this option I had a little apprehension about the tense of "set", which is in present tense whereas "stunned" is in past tense.

But I had a gut feel that (D) is the right option which finally turned out to be wrong.

The mistake I have done was, I was not able to understand that the second clause is qualifying "emancipation" rather than introducing a new clause.

+1 A

"setting" is required because we need to explain what deed of emancipationd did. "setting" is a modifier.
B changes the number of slaves.

After eliminating unidiomatic choices involving the use of the verb ‘consider’, we are left with A and D. The gist of the topic is that the Robert stunned his family, friends, and neighbors, by releasing all (note all) the slaves he held in his enrollment. The is the implication of the use of the definite article ‘the‘in the original text. When you drop the definite article, then it means that Robert had more than 500 slaves and of them he released only 500. This is distorted intention. Hence A is the right choice

I chose C first but agree that "Considered" does not require "as".
Could some one please elaborate how "the more than 500" is correct? Use of "the" seems odd.

Here is my approach to the right answer.

In 1791 Robert Carter III, one of the wealthiest plantation owners in Virginia, stunned his family, friends, and neighbors by filing a deed of emancipation, setting free the more than 500 slaves who were legally considered his property.

(A) setting free the more than 500 slaves who were legally considered >> though it may seem a bit lengthy, actually it correctly conveys the meaning.
(B) setting free more than the 500 slaves legally considered as >> "consider as his property" is wordy. "Considered his property" is correct and concise. I also followed 'ear test' that I am trying to develop to train my ears.

(C) and set free more than 500 slaves, who were legally considered as >> parallelism problem
(D) and set free more than the 500 slaves who were legally considered >> parallelism problem
(E) and he set free the more than 500 slaves who were legally considered as >> parallelism problem

the correct idiom is Consider X Y

Only choices A and D use the correct idiom.
The ing modifier is used correctly, since it describes how Mr. Robert Carter stunned everyone!
and set - is not correct, because 2 verbs are parallel and it is illogical to say that Mr. RC stunned everyone and set free..



A) setting free the more than 500 slaves who were legally considered
looks ok.

B )setting free more than the 500 slaves legally considered as
incorrect idiom

C )and set free more than 500 slaves, who were legally considered as
incorrect idiom, and set should be setting.

D )and set free more than the 500 slaves who were legally considered
set should be ing modifier
set free more than the... - changes meaning. Now it is implied that he set free his 500 slaves and other slaves.

E) and he set free the more than 500 slaves who were legally considered as
new clause not properly connected.
incorrect idiom
set should be setting.


A is the best.

There are 2 issues with this question - 1. Idiomatic Usage Issue ( Consider x , y ) 2. Modifier Issue ( , ver-ing modifier )

Using the idiomatic usage rule we can negate option , (B), (C) & (E) so Option (A) and (D) remains..

Option (A)

In 1791 Robert Carter III, one of the wealthiest plantation owners in Virginia, stunned his family, friends, and neighbors by filing a deed of emancipation , setting free the more than 500 slaves who were legally considered his property.

If the verb-ing modifier appears after a clause and is preceded by a comma, then it modifies the entire preceding clause.

Option (B)

In 1791 Robert Carter III, one of the wealthiest plantation owners in Virginia, stunned his family, friends, and neighbors by
1. filing a deed of emancipation,
2. and set free more than the 500 slaves who were legally considered his property.

Option (B) illogically refers 2 actions highlighted above..

Hence among the given options only (A) follows..

To be more clarified, is it like the following?

Let, Robert had 510 slaves. Without 'the' it means any number of slaves between 501 and 510 inclusive and with 'the' it means all 510 slaves.

Am I correct?

To get the meaning difference, don't start by setting 510 as the total number, because it is that number that changes in this question.

He solved the more than 100 questions in the book.
This means that there are more than a hundred questions in the book (say 110) and he solved all of them.

He solved more than the 100 questions in the book.
This means that there are a hundred questions in the book (not 110), and he solved more questions than just those in the book (say from a test or another book).

Experts please comment on my reasoning. Am I right or wrong ? AjiteshArun
My reason for answering this question

(A) setting free the more than 500 slaves who were legally considered

(B) setting free more than the 500 slaves legally considered as
"more than the" -- unidiomatic

(C) and set free more than 500 slaves, who were legally considered as
"neighbors by filing a deed" -- should be setting not "set"
(D) and set free more than the 500 slaves who were legally considered
"neighbors by filing a deed" -- should be setting not "set"
(E) and he set free the more than 500 slaves who were legally considered as
"neighbors by filing a deed" -- should be setting not "set"

so by method for elimination left with A only

1. The usage of and is a problem in some of these options. It could mean that Carter did two (possibly unrelated) things: he (a) stunned and (b) set free. So it's fine as long as you are going for setting because you want to say that the setting free bit is what he did to stun his family.

2. You could also avoid the wordiness introduced by considered as (it's not strictly incorrect or unidiomatic to use as with consider).

3. You could think about the meaning difference discussed here.

Ajitesh, I have an idiom list which mentions that "consider as" is not correct.

Can you cite an example where GMAT is fine with this usage? Will help me clarify this ambiguity.

The thinking behind that particular entry in your idiom list is flawed. Consider as is standard and is very much in use, even if it is (perhaps) not as common, or as concise, as consider X Y (where X and Y are both nouns). However, it remains a stretch to say that the as will always be incorrect.

Whether this affects you or not is debatable, but what is not debatable is that the GMAT has exploited such incorrect classifications in the past by making questions in which the correct option uses a supposedly unidiomatic structure.