valardohaeris
Jat
Can someone explain why D is wrong?
We cannot say that D is wrong grammatically.
B and D convey same meaning but B is slightly better construction than D.
In D, the subject (Jurassic Park) comes into picture after 2 continuous modifiers. This kind of construction,although not wrong, is not preferred in GMAT.
If B were not in the options list, D could have been the next choice
Hi Valardohaeris,
While I agree with you that D is correct grammatically and that both B and D convey the same meaning, I don't completely agree that placing 2 back to back modifiers is a problem with the GMAT. Let me quote an official sentence here (OG 12; Q44), which is the correct answer for its corresponding question:
Seldom more than 40 feet wide and 12 feet
deep but running 363 miles across the rugged
wilderness of upstate New York, the Erie Canal
connected the Hudson River at Albany to the
Great Lakes at Buffalo, providing the port of New
York City with a direct water link to the heartland
of the North American continent.
As you can see, the long modifying phrase in the beginning has two contrasting components, and the subject comes after this phrase - the phrase itself may seem odd initially. But it is indeed the correct answer. Now, I know that you said that D would have been the answer, had B not been there, but in essence mostly when GMAT gives preference to one construction over the other, the logic is quite understandable.
However, in the question at hand, I can't seem to understand the preference one bit. I would be really interested to see what the OE is in the source. My experience with official questions tells me that this question in its current form is not representative of the kind of decisions one has to make while choosing one choice over the other in actual GMAT questions. Of course there is the other possibility that I have actually missed something in the question.
Cheers!