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Difficulty:
25%
(medium)
Question Stats:
70% (01:14) correct
30%
(01:19)
wrong
based on 7206
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Many kitchens today are equipped with high-speed electrical gadgets, such as blenders and food processors, which are able to inflict as serious injuries as those caused by an industrial wood-planing machine.
(A) which are able to inflict as serious injuries as those
(B) which can inflict serious injuries such as those
(C) inflicting injuries as serious as that having been
(D) capable to inflict injuries as serious as that
(E) capable of inflicting injuries as serious as those
(A) which are able to inflict as serious injuries as those
(B) which can inflict serious injuries such as those
(C) inflicting injuries as serious as that having been
(D) capable to inflict injuries as serious as that
(E) capable of inflicting injuries as serious as those
28 Feb 2018, 17:39
Kudos
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A big key to this question is the pronoun “those.” It’s a plural pronoun (also called a demonstrative pronoun if you like grammar jargon; “that” is the singular version, and it’s discussed in this article), and your best bet is to reread the sentence, replacing “those” with the plural noun it refers to.
With that in mind…
Trouble is, the phrase “…are able to inflict as serious injuries as…” isn’t quite right. We’re trying to emphasize the severity of the potential injuries from kitchen gadgets, so “injuries as serious as” would be much better than “as serious injuries as.” Actually, the latter version just doesn’t quite make sense.
You could also argue that the use of “which” isn’t ideal here. In general, modifiers beginning with “which” modify the immediately preceding noun. That isn’t an absolute rule, but I think there’s arguably some ambiguity in the phrase “… kitchen gadgets, such as blenders and food processors, which are…” Is this trying to say that kitchen gadgets in general can inflict serious injury, or just the food processors? The intent is clearly the former, but the “which” phrase MIGHT make that meaning a little bit muddy.
And even if you don’t believe a single word of that last paragraph, the “injuries as serious as” thing is pretty darned bad. Let’s eliminate (A).
The phrase “such as” introduces examples, so if we say that kitchen gadgets “ can inflict serious injuries such as [the injuries] caused by an industrial wood-planing machine”, that’s literally saying that kitchen gadgets inflict exactly the same injuries as a wood-planing machine. And that’s not quite right: we want to say that the injuries inflicted by kitchen gadgets are just as serious – not that they’re exactly the same injuries.
So (B) is gone.
More importantly, the word “that” is used as a singular pronoun in (C), and it has no logical referent. (Again, for more on the GMAT’s many uses of the word “that”, check out this article.) Plus, I have no idea why we would use “having been” in this situation.
We can eliminate (C).
But as is often the case on the GMAT, you can avoid the idiom entirely if you’re paying close attention to the other stuff. In this case, we have the singular pronoun “that” again, and it once again has no logical referent, since there are no singular nouns earlier in the sentence.
So even if you totally ignore the idiom, you can safely eliminate (D).
Hey, that’s clear as a bell. (E) is our answer.
With that in mind…
Quote:
Well, the pronoun seems to be OK. “Those” seems to refer to the most recent plural, “injuries”, so that gives us: “… kitchen gadgets, such as blenders and food processors, which are able to inflict as serious injuries as [the injuries] caused by an industrial wood-planing machine.”
Trouble is, the phrase “…are able to inflict as serious injuries as…” isn’t quite right. We’re trying to emphasize the severity of the potential injuries from kitchen gadgets, so “injuries as serious as” would be much better than “as serious injuries as.” Actually, the latter version just doesn’t quite make sense.
You could also argue that the use of “which” isn’t ideal here. In general, modifiers beginning with “which” modify the immediately preceding noun. That isn’t an absolute rule, but I think there’s arguably some ambiguity in the phrase “… kitchen gadgets, such as blenders and food processors, which are…” Is this trying to say that kitchen gadgets in general can inflict serious injury, or just the food processors? The intent is clearly the former, but the “which” phrase MIGHT make that meaning a little bit muddy.
And even if you don’t believe a single word of that last paragraph, the “injuries as serious as” thing is pretty darned bad. Let’s eliminate (A).
Quote:
(B) sounds pretty good! But it’s wrong anyway.
The phrase “such as” introduces examples, so if we say that kitchen gadgets “ can inflict serious injuries such as [the injuries] caused by an industrial wood-planing machine”, that’s literally saying that kitchen gadgets inflict exactly the same injuries as a wood-planing machine. And that’s not quite right: we want to say that the injuries inflicted by kitchen gadgets are just as serious – not that they’re exactly the same injuries.
So (B) is gone.
Quote:
This is a mess. For starters, the “-ing” modifier “inflicting” no longer suggests that the kitchen gadgets CAN inflict serious injuries; now the sentence implies that the kitchen gadgets ACTUALLY inflict serious injuries, and that’s not quite what the sentence is trying to say.
More importantly, the word “that” is used as a singular pronoun in (C), and it has no logical referent. (Again, for more on the GMAT’s many uses of the word “that”, check out this article.) Plus, I have no idea why we would use “having been” in this situation.
We can eliminate (C).
Quote:
You might know that I’m not really a proponent of studying idioms, but for whatever it’s worth: “capable to inflict” is a pretty crappy version of “capable of inflicting.”
But as is often the case on the GMAT, you can avoid the idiom entirely if you’re paying close attention to the other stuff. In this case, we have the singular pronoun “that” again, and it once again has no logical referent, since there are no singular nouns earlier in the sentence.
So even if you totally ignore the idiom, you can safely eliminate (D).
Quote:
(E) is awfully similar to (D), except that we have a better idiom (“capable of inflicting” is better than “capable to inflict”), and now the pronoun (“those”) is plural. “Those” seems to refer to the most recent plural, “injuries”, so that gives us: “… high-speed electrical gadgets… capable of inflicting injuries as serious as the injuries caused by an industrial wood-planing machine.”
Hey, that’s clear as a bell. (E) is our answer.
30 Apr 2017, 01:45
Kudos
Bookmarks
yt770, injuries are being compared to other injuries: "injuries as serious as those [injuries] caused by an industrial wood-planing machine."
In the form "as X as Y," X and Y are not the parallel elements. Rather, Y is parallel with whatever precedes the idiom. So if I say "this dog is as big as a cow," I am comparing the dog and the cow. In between, I've showed the trait that they have in common (being big). Similarly, in the original example, we are saying that injuries from kitchen gadgets and those (injuries) from wood-planning machines can be equally serious.
In the form "as X as Y," X and Y are not the parallel elements. Rather, Y is parallel with whatever precedes the idiom. So if I say "this dog is as big as a cow," I am comparing the dog and the cow. In between, I've showed the trait that they have in common (being big). Similarly, in the original example, we are saying that injuries from kitchen gadgets and those (injuries) from wood-planning machines can be equally serious.
