Ugh, there are way too many words here for a weekend QOTD.
For whatever it’s worth, though: sometimes, I meet people who are really intimidated by these long, fully underlined sentences. But think of them as a gift: there are usually plenty of juicy errors in the longer sentences, and it’s just a question of being patient about finding them.
Quote:
(A) In its journal, the U.S.-based Minor Planet Center (MPC) announced that it would officially name minor planet number 207715, which was discovered by scientists from the Chinese Academy of Science (CAS) on September 11, 2007, “Muqin Shuijao”, which means “water cellar for mothers” in English, in the international minor planet table.
The first things that catch my eye here are the “its” and “it” in the first line (both of which seem to refer to the Minor Planet Center) and the two uses of “which” later in the sentence… both of which seem OK to me. Sure, this thing feels wordy – and it even feels kind of weird to have two “which” phrases so close to each other – but that’s not a crime.
I don’t really like the sentence, but nobody cares what I think. I don’t see any definite errors, so I guess we have to keep (A).
Quote:
(B) The U.S.-based Minor Planet Center (MPC) announced in its journal that in the international minor planet table that it would officially name minor planet number 207715 “Muqin Shuijao”, which means “water cellar for mothers” in English and which was discovered by scientists from the Chinese Academy of Science (CAS) on September 11, 2007.
Hm, this garbage is pretty subtle. There’s something wrong about that first part of the sentence: “The MPC announced in its journal
that in the international minor planet table
that it would officially name…” The word order here doesn’t quite make sense: the second “that” seems to be modifying “minor planet table.” Sure, you could argue that the phrase “that it would officially name” can “reach back” to “in its journal… that it would officially name”, but it’s definitely not as clear as it should be.
I’m also pretty uncomfortable with the parallelism in the last part of the sentence: those two modifiers beginning with “which” are parallel to each other, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen two parallel “which” modifiers in the same sentence on the GMAT – at least not in a correct answer. Again, I’m not CERTAIN that this is wrong, but (A) seems better.
If you want to be conservative and hang onto (B), I wouldn’t blame you one bit. But (A) doesn’t have the parallelism and modifier placement issues that (B) does, and the meaning is better in (A).
Quote:
(C) Discovered by scientists from the Chinese Academy of Science (CAS) on September 11, 2007, minor planet number 207715, which is to be officially named in the international minor planet table as “Muqin Shuijao”, or “water cellar for mothers” in English, as announced by the U.S.-based Minor Planet Center (MPC) in its journal.
There are some funky little things in here. For example, I don’t quite understand the use of the phrase “which is to be officially named…
as ‘Muqin Shuijao’…” Seems like a waste of words, and we don’t figure out that the MPC is performing the act of naming the planet until the very end of the sentence. It would be much more direct to say that the MPC “announced that it would name the planet…” – as we see in (A).
More importantly: this thing isn’t even a sentence. It starts with an “-ed” modifier, followed by the subject (“minor planet number 207715…”)… but then the subject never actually “performs” a verb. So (C) is out.
Quote:
(D) The U.S.-based Minor Planet Center (MPC) announced that in the international minor planet table, minor planet number 207715, which was discovered by scientists from the Chinese Academy of Science (CAS) on September 11, 2007, will officially be named “Muqin Shuijao”, which means “water cellar for mothers” in English, in its journal.
I don’t like that this is so subtle, either. (And again: the GMAT really doesn't care what I like, anyway. If it did, each of the questions would come with a side of French fries, or at least some nice, warm lavash bread or something.) But what the heck is “in its journal” doing at the very end of the sentence? It modifies the phrase “the MPC announced” – which is way back at the beginning of the sentence. As written, (D) sounds like the planet will be named in the journal itself, and that makes no sense: the planet will be named in the international minor planet table – and the announcement will be made in the journal. So (D) is gone, too.
Quote:
(E) Discovered by scientists from the Chinese Academy of Science (CAS) on September 11, 2007, the U.S.-based Minor Planet Center (MPC) announced in its journal that it will officially name minor planet number 207715 as “Muqin Shuijao”, which means “water cellar for mothers” in English, in the international minor planet table.
This is a nice, straightforward “-ed” modifier error. (
More on “-ed” words here.) Literally, the sentence seems to be saying that the MPC was discovered by scientists, and that definitely doesn’t work. (E) is gone, and we’ll settle for (A).