Literacy opened up entire realms of verifiable knowledge to ordinary

Question

Literacy opened up entire realms of verifiable knowledge to ordinary men and women  having been previously considered incapable of discerning truth for themselves .

(A) having been previously considered incapable of discerning truth for themselves

(B) who had previously been considered incapable of discerning truth for themselves

(C) previously considered incapable of discerning truth for himself or herself

(D) of whom it had previously been considered they were incapable of discerning truth for themselves

(E) who had previously been considered incapable of discerning truth for himself or herself

America's God: From Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln 
By  Mark A. Noll

Positively, common sense opened up whole realms of verifiable knowledge to ordinary men (and sometimes women)  who had previously been considered incapable of discerning truth for themselves .

Why E is a wrong choice in above question?

GMATNinja · Answer

You have a valid point. The trouble is that we could make a similar argument for EVERY answer choice: is everything after "women" modifying just "women" or "men AND women"??

Let's suppose we DID want to differentiate between these two groups: (1) ordinary men and (2) women who had previously been considered incapable of discerning truth for themselves. In that case, it would be MUCH clearer to add an additional "to" before "women":

"Literacy opened up entire realms of verifiable knowledge (1) to ordinary men and (2)   to   women who had previously been considered incapable of discerning truth for themselves." - Now it's perfectly clear that literacy opened up realms of knowledge to those two separate groups.

Without the extra two, it makes a lot more sense to group "men and women" together. Can you make a case against that interpretation? Sure. But we can do so for all 5 choices, so it shouldn't factor into our decision!

Regarding your second question, check out  this article , particularly "usage #4: "that" as a modifier (the “touch rule" and its exceptions)".

These examples might clear up your first doubt:

"The man had been given a gift." - Yes, the gift was given TO the man. But "man" is still the subject here. 
 "I met the man who had been given a gift." - Again, the gift was given TO the man. Also, notice that "man" is the  object  of the verb "met" -- but what matters is whether the "WHO" itself is the object of a preposition/verb. In this case, it isn't: "who" simply modifies a regular old noun ("man") -- a noun that happens to function as an  object  in this sentence.  
 "I met the man to whom the gift had been given." - Now we have a preposition ("to"), and the object of that preposition should be "whom", not "who".

As for "had+previously": yes, the verb tense implies that the action happened in the past. But the word "previously" emphasizes and clarifies the timing. When had those men and women been considered incapable of discerning truth for themselves? Before literacy (was available to them). The same logic applies to something like this:

"Tim ate a sandwich at noon even though he had previously eaten a sandwich for breakfast." - Is the word "previously"  necessary ? No, but it can be added for extra clarity/emphasis.

I hope that helps!

mk96 · Answer

Hi,

Can you please tell me why the original choice is incorrect? Is the verb-ing modfier not apt here?

Thanks,
mk

mSKR · Answer

HAVING BEEN : BECAUSW
 Implies Causation

Literacy opened up entire realms of verifiable knowledge to ordinary men and women  having been previously considered incapable of discerning truth for themselves.

Literacy opened up entire realms of verifiable knowledge to ordinary men and women   because  previously considered incapable of discerning truth for themselves. 
 wrong

Hi  AndrewN  sir,

can you please give your expert opinion on A. Is my reasoning correct in eliminating A? please suggest.

Thanks

AndrewN · Answer

That is one way of looking at it,  imSKR . You can also think of the modifier in the way  daagh  had above, in  this post . Either way you look at it, the -ing construct is suboptimal in this sentence. When a clearer alternative exists, it is better to play it safe.

- Andrew

santosh93 · Answer

This is a question from VerbalReview -2021.

The Explanation in Verbal Review is, "Themselves" is a reflexive pronoun to refer back to the plural noun phrase "ordinary men and women"

My doubt is, 
Is "Himself or Herself" a correct reflexive pronoun to refer back to "Ordinary man and woman"? 
If not what's the correct reflexive pronoun for "Ordinary man and woman"?

EducationAisle · Answer

Yeah...that would work...though I believe  themselves  would work as well, since  man and woman  is plural.

DmitryFarber · Answer

santosh93

There's no proper answer to this one, because we can't say "ordinary man and woman." In the original, "men and women" was clearly plural, and "ordinary" applied to all of them. "Man and woman" would also have to be plural--compound subjects always are--but what would it mean? One man and one woman? Then we'd need "an ordinary man and an ordinary woman." In that case, yes, "themselves" would apply. For instance, "The movie shows an ordinary man and an ordinary woman who find themselves at the center of extraordinary events."

By the way, can you see why we can't say "an ordinary man and woman"? We'd have a singular article ("an") preceding a plural subject ("man and woman"). We might be better off saying "two ordinary people," unless their gender is important to the sentence.

katesizon · Answer

Literacy opened up entire realms of verifiable knowledge to ordinary men and women having been previously considered incapable of discerning truth for themselves.

(A) having been previously considered incapable of discerning truth for themselves

Hello Dear Experts!

Can you please explain why "A"is a wrong answer? 
Having been considered without comma modifies preceding noun "men and women", and that participle is an analogous to a verb in the Past Perfect tense and in the Passive voice.
 It seems grammatically better to use a relative pronoun "who" to refer to "men and women", but I cannot articulate why exactly B is a better choice and how to decide between "having been considered" participle and other choices later.

Thank YOU!

GMATNinja · Answer

Choice (A) is a tough one to eliminate, so don't beat yourself up too much about this one!

First, take a look at this "having + verb" example (stolen from  one of our crusty old chat transcripts ):

"Having eaten dinner already, Amber immediately began drinking heavily at the dinner party."

As stated in the chat, this one gets the timeline right. Amber ate dinner first, and then started drinking at the dinner party. That’s perfectly fine logically. 
 Also, notice that the "having + verb" construction logically modifies the main clause. It tells us what Amber had already done BEFORE she started drinking heavily.

In choice (A), the timeline isn't really an issue -- the ordinary men and women were considered incapable BEFORE literacy opened up entire realms of verifiable knowledge.

But notice that the "having been" construction in (A) doesn't modify the main clause. Instead, it modifies an object of the main clause (an indirect object, actually -- literacy opens up realms to whom? To the ordinary men and women).

Unlike the Amber example above, the "having + verb" construction in (A) does NOT tell us what the noun (ordinary men and women) had already done (or been) before doing something else. Instead, it tells what the ordinary men and women had been before the LITERACY did something else.

That's certainly not a concrete error (so, no, please don't ask if we can make up some rigid rules about when "having + verb" works and when it doesn't!). But the fact that the "having been" doesn't describe the main clause in (A) makes the intended meaning somewhat unclear in this case. The meaning is much clearer in (B), where we have a noun modifier ("who...") describing the ordinary men and women. That makes (B) a better option.

Also, the use of "previously" doesn't make as much sense in (A). (Check out the bottom of  this post  for our defense of the "previously" in B.) The "having + verb" modifier is trying to tell us that the ordinary men and women had been incapable before literacy opened up realms. The addition of the word "previously" in (A) makes the reader wonder, "well, were they incapable  just before  literacy opened up realms? Or at some point  even further back  on the timeline?"

In other words, if we go back in time and observe the ordinary men and women before literacy opened up realms, would we describe them as incapable? Or  previously  incapable? There's a subtle difference in meaning, and that gives us another vote against (A).

I hope that helps!

Dinesh654 · Answer

hello  MartyTargetTestPrep ,
In choice A,
having been is also used for past.
Is there a rule to differentiate between had vs having been?
Is having been used for recent past?
I chose A because it was shorter than B.
why exactly is A wrong?

Vegita · Answer

Hi  EducationAisle

Doesn't the two tenses have to modify the same subject or is it just that the events have to be related?

"had been considered" is for the subject 'men and women' whereas 'opened up' is for 'Literacy'.

EducationAisle · Answer

There is really no requirement for the two tenses to refer to the  same  subject.

Perhaps few examples would help:

Peter helped Maria, who had been going through difficult times. 
- "helped" refers to "Peter", while "had been going" refers to Maria.

Michael bought a new car that had been a best seller across segments. 
- "bought" refers to "Michael", while "had been" refers to "car".

DmitryFarber · Answer

Vegita

First, it's worth noting that one of the terms is in a modifier but the other isn't. The first two words of the sentence--"Literacy opened" are the main subject and verb. No modifier is involved. "Who had been considered" is a modifier for "men and women."

In any case, even if both the verbs in question were normal verbs (or both were modifiers), we still wouldn't necessarily have a problem. It's quite normal to have different modifiers and verbs that work with different parts of the sentence. We just need to make sure that the meaning is clearly expressed.

Babashyam · Answer

Hello All,

I dint get this question how the sequence is happening and secondly what is the verb for the literacy is it "opened" ?
if it is then how ? because literacy is not doing the action of opening up of entire realms.....

Also why "having been" is incorrect usage since it is correctly modifies men and women

when we have to sure about the usage of relative pronouns ?

Awaiting for your response !

#Egmat
#Shradhaa
#Payal

ExpertsGlobal5 · Answer

Hello  Babashyam ,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your queries, the order of events is such -- ordinary men and women were considered incapable of discerning truth for themselves, and then literacy opened up entire realms of verifiable knowledge to them.

Further, "having been...considered" is a participle construction, so it cannot be used to refer to the earlier of two actions - ordinary men and women being considered incapable of discerning truth for themselves and literacy opening up entire realms of verifiable knowledge to these people; remember, the past perfect tense (marked by the use of helping verb "had") is used when a sentence contains two actions in the past; the helping verb "had" is used with the action in the "greater past".

Additionally, "opened" is, indeed, the verb that acts upon the noun "Literacy"; the clause "Literacy opened up entire realms of verifiable knowledge" means that the quality of being literate allowed ordinary men and women access to "entire realms of verifiable knowledge".

We hope this helps.
All the best!
Experts' Global Team

GMATking94 · Answer

Can anyone explain what is the difference between the answer choices B & E and what is GMAC actually testing here ?? I am really confused with the explanations provided.

Thanks,

egmat · Answer

Hello GMATking94 , Hope you are doing fine. I will be glad to help you with this one.

The original sentence used the expression "men AND women". Therefore, to refer to both "men" and "women", the collective group denoted by "men and women", we need a common pronoun. Choice B stands correct for the usage of "themselves" because this plural pronoun refers to both "men" and "women". Choice E is incorrect for the usage of "himself OR herself". The use of "or" considers only either men or women for reference through "himself or herself". The expression does NOT refer to both "men" and "women". This sentence tests the usage of an appropriate pronoun for correct reference to convey the intended logical meaning. Hope this helps.

Thanks. Shraddha

EducationAisle · Answer

"men" is a plural noun and so is "women".

On the other hand, the pronouns "himself" and "herself" can only refer to  singular  nouns.

Hence, the pronouns "himself" and "herself" used in option E do not have any valid antecedent. So, E is incorrect.

p.s. Our book    EducationAisle Sentence Correction Nirvana    discusses  pronoun antecedents , their application and examples in significant detail. If you or someone is interested, PM me your email-id; I can mail the corresponding section.

GMATNinja · Answer

Here are a few examples that might help:

1. "  Each man   in the group   is   incapable of discerning truth for himself."

Who's incapable of discerning truth? Each man individually -- here we're referring to the men one at a time, so the subject is singular (hence the singular verb, "is"). So we need singular reflexive pronoun at the end: "himself".

2. "  Each person   in the group   is   incapable of discerning truth for himself or herself."

Who's incapable of discerning truth? Each person. Again, we're referring to the people one at a time, so the subject is singular (hence the singular verb, "is"). So we need a singular reflexive pronoun at the end: "himself or herself" (the "or" signifies that we'd use one of those two pronouns, depending on the person).

3. "The   people   in the group   are   incapable of discerning truth for themselves."

Who's incapable of discerning truth? The people -- and that's plural (hence the plural verb, "are"). So we need plural reflexive pronoun at the end: "themselves".

4. "The   men and women   in the group   are   incapable of discerning truth for themselves."

Who's incapable of discerning truth? The men and women -- again, we have a plural subject (and verb), so we need plural reflexive pronoun at the end: "themselves".

The final example above is essentially what we have in the official question: a plural subject (men and women) that requires a plural reflexive pronoun ("themselves").

I hope that helps!

Literacy opened up entire realms of verifiable knowledge to ordinary

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Literacy opened up entire realms of verifiable knowledge to ordinary

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