Although covered in about 11 inches of snow, aviation officials said

Mun23:

I'm happy to help with this. This is a classic Modifier Touch Rule question. The modifier "covered in about 11 inches of snow", needs to touch the thing that was covered in snow --- not the "officials", not the "runway conditions" --- the word following the modifier has to be "runway", because the runway, and only the runway, is covered in snow. This only happens in (D).

Does this make sense?

Mike

Mike,

In your previous post, you mentioned that a sentence for example "Although covered in about 11 inches of snow" cannot be correct. Instead, it should be written for example "Although road is covered in about 11 inches of snow". Could you please explain how we used this structure (without subject) in this example?

Thanks,

Dear hfiratozturk,
First of all, understand that grammar is seldom as black & white as, say, mathematics. There are many more shades of grey.

In this sentence, the "Although covered in about 11 inches of snow" is not even in the part of the sentence about which we get to choose, so it doesn't affect answering the question. I would say --- this structure, [subordinate conjunction] + [participial phrase] or [subordinate conjunction] + [adjective] runs the danger of being too informal. I believe in the OG, it only appears in an incorrect answer choice, never in a correct sentence. I did find one example in PowerPrep in which "Although happy that ...." was part of the non-underlined section of a sentence. I will say, I have tremendous respect for MGMAT and their material, but I am a little suspicious about this question because of this. I suppose the only thing omitted from the "although" clause would be some small subject/verb combination like "it was" --- instead of "Although covered in about 11 inches of snow", we would have "Although it was covered in about 11 inches of snow" ---- so I suppose in this case, MGMAT would argue that dropping the "it was" is acceptable. I don't think the OA version of this sentence is ideal ---- remember, the correct answer on GMAT SC is not necessarily ideal, only the best answer from among the five choices. I wouldn't say this construction is "wrong", but merely less than perfect, and potentially not GMAT-like.

I would say --- try not to worry about the parts of these practice sentences about which you don't get to choose. Sometimes, there will be less-than-perfect elements --- not out-and-out wrong, but simply less the perfect --- in the non-underlined part of the sentence. Wherever this particular structure appears in the underlined part of the sentence, at least in official material, it is always part of an incorrect answer; I believe this is a guideline you can follow. Remember that even a correct answer on a GMAT SC may not be ideal, only the best of the five answers. Remember, this is not math --- language is sloppy --- it's a living thing --- and the rules & guidelines of grammar & syntax abound in exceptions and shades of gray. If you are searching for axiomatic rules to follow dogmatically, you will be disappointed.

Does this make sense?

Mike

Hi Mike,

Is the wordy ("during the time of landing") vs concise("during the landing") qualify as a valid point for elimination of option C for someone who is stuck between C and D?

Thanks.

Dear kapsycumm,
I would say "during the time of landing" is a little wordy --- it certainly would make me suspicious of that answer, although its conceivable that this could be part of a less-than-ideal correct answer if all the others were flat-out wrong. It's not B/W grounds for omission all by itself.

By contrast, the modifier issue I discussed above is a slam-dunk for omitting wrong answers. I'd say the much bigger problem with (C) is the awkwardly placement of the phrase "according to aviation officials" ---- what was "according" to them?? Here's what (C) has

Although covered in about 11 inches of snow, according to aviation officials, the runway was ...

In this sentence, it sounds like we need the expertise of aviation officials to tell us that there are 11 inches of snow on the runway --- as if that were not a totally obvious fact to any snow-removal worker who happened to go out there with a shovel. In the sentence overall, the thing the aviation officials are making clear is not the amount of snow on the runway, but rather the condition of the runway. By placing this modifier in the wrong place, (C) gives a mistaken impression of what the aviation officials were telling us. That's the BIG problem with (C).

Does all this make sense?

Mike

____________________________
Please explain why B is wrong

Option B says that "The runway conditions" are covered with snow. Read the complete sentence once with option B and you will realize that this option is logically incorrect.

Only D correctly places "the runway" after the initial modifier. The runway is what is covered in snow!

We might get away with delaying the main subject with another modifier, as in C, but C doesn't make it entirely clear *what* is "according to aviation officials." It could be read to mean that the officials say the runway is covered in snow, and the *author* is asserting that it's in good condition.

Hi Dmitry,
Happy new year
I have a query on the usage of "Although". Is it compulsory to have clause with "Although". I have seen a few Official Q with Although
followed by participle.
Request you to share your inputs on this.
Regards.

I think you'll find that most correct official SC answers with "although" use it to compare clauses. The usage here is an exception (from an unofficial source, I believe), and it's not very common (or very good).

In any case, we should always follow the "although" phrase (not necessarily the word itself) with a clause. So we can get away with saying "Although covered in snow, the runway was in acceptable condition," but we wouldn't want to switch that order and put "although covered in snow" at the end. And what we really want to avoid is something like "It was a sunny, although cold, day." There "although" is just comparing two adjectives, and that's definitively wrong.

Hi Dmitry..
Thanks for the inputs.
Below is a Q from GmatPrep : Although eradicated in the United States, polio continues elsewhere and could be brought into the country by visitors.
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/forum ... t8775.html

According to Grammar websites, "Although" shall be used with clause. However GMAT doesn't seem to follow this rule strictly. Is my understanding correct or there are some exceptions, which i am missing?
In the thread, Ron has shared some pointers regarding this, but I am still not clear about its usage.

Hi,
the answer can be found in 10 seconds, if we realize what does the subordinate clause "Although covered in about 11 inches of snow," modifies..
it cannot modify aviation officials, runway conditionsbut runway..
so D is the answer..

other points are ..
use of although shuld bring in contrast..
conditins is plural

straight D; not C because there should be no intrusion between a modifier and its modified noun.

Hi for two reasons..
1) the modifier is away from the clause modifying it due to "according o.."..
2)secondly the emergency landing is better than teh time of emergency landing

Hello All,

I recently came across this question during my MGMAT mock and something is really bothering me ever since.

At first glance, it clearly felt like the question is asking for eliminating answer choices based on the touch rule that a noun modifier should follow. So, I have eliminated A, B, C, and E. But upon closer examination, I found that D completely changes the meaning of choice A. Although I have come across questions that have slight meaning ambiguities in their options, I have never come across a question in OG which has options that completely change the meaning of a sentence.

As per my understanding,
Several options (A & E) state that "aviation officials SAY that the conditions of the runway were acceptable, despite the fact that there were 11 inches of snow on the runway".
And other options (B, C & D) state that "aviation officials BELIEVE that the runway conditions were acceptable, despite the 11 inches of snow"
Now, I was completely confused after noticing this shift of meaning between choices, especially between D & E. So, I chose E over D, even though, grammatically speaking, E has an issue, simply because it conveys the same meaning as A.

It would be really helpful if any expert (GMATNinja, GMATNinjaTwo, generis, daagh, MartyTargetTestPrep, AjiteshArun, VeritasPrepBrian & @egmat) can help me understand how meaning and grammar affect SC questions. I am aware that grammar has the power to clear the meaning ambiguity and slightly change the meaning (such as changing the verb tenses affecting the timescale of action) but can it change the whole meaning altogether. I have completed 90% of my SC questions in OG and OGVerbal and never seen a question introduce a totally new meaning in one or two of its options. Please enlighten me.

Thanks in Advance.

Hi Spartan9999,

I'll try to address as many of these points as I can.

1. Try this official question. It's not particularly difficult (it has a GMAT Club difficulty rating of just 5%), but it does a good job of showing us (a) why it is important to prioritize certain concepts over others and (b) how looking for patterns in GMAT questions occasionally leads to "rules" that really should not be classified as rules.

2. There aren't too many official questions available to the public, and many of them are really old. That means we only ever have access to a small subset of all GMAT questions. One thing we can be sure of, though, is that all the questions in that subset are at least a few years old (some are decades old). This makes it risky to go with the "I haven't seen it in the OG" approach. Or, to be clearer, such an approach would not be a "net positive" for some test takers.

3. There is nothing special about option A. This means that if A is not correct, the correct option may convey a meaning that is very different from the one conveyed by A.

4. As far as I know, according to also implies that someone said something. It could also be used to indicate what is written in (say) a book. I'd like to see other opinions on this though.

I want to echo the last two points that Ajitesh makes. First, in this question we don't see a significant change in meaning, because "according to" definitely means that the person or group cited said that thing. It doesn't mean "believe," and even if it did, we wouldn't know those beliefs unless they had shared them!

However, point #3 is the most important of all. "Changes the meaning" is not a thing, unless we can tell what the intended meaning is and determine that the choice in question changes it. In that case, it's better to simply say that the meaning conveyed in a particular choice is incorrect or unclear. If we really couldn't change the meaning, we'd have to accept that aviation officials are really covered in snow, and that would be really change! So don't worry about figuring out what *A* wants us to say. Just read for grammar and see which choices fail, then narrow down again based on differences in meaning (if needed). Good luck!