OFFICIAL EXPLANATIONProject SC Butler: Day 179: Sentence Correction (SC2)
• This question is tricky because we must ensure two things:
1) Whatever happened
After Junko lay down must make sense (the dependent clause "After Junko lay" gets its meaning from the main clause); and
2)
having finished a hard day's work must modify something logical.
• Test strategy: Answers A and E are almost indistinguishable and that fact is a big hint that neither is correct.
If you chose (A), when you get to (E), its similarity to (A) should be a big warning: something got missed.
• Test strategy: whenever we
having ___ED (verbED), we should remember that the words describe an event that is finished in the (usually recent) past and that the phrase typically is a cause whose effect will be stated in the sentence.
• I say more about sequence of events and the comparison in notes after the POE
THE PROMPTQuote:
After Junko lay down, having finished a hard day's work, sleep descended on her like a soft blanket.
THE OPTIONSQuote:
A) After Junko lay down, having finished a hard day's work, sleep descended on her like a soft blanket.
• After we read
having finished a hard day's work, the next thing we should be reading about is a
personSleep does not finish a hard day's work..
Eliminate A
Quote:
B) After Junko lay down, having finished a hard day's work, she felt sleep descend on her like a soft blanket.
•
having finished a hard day's work describes an action completed by a person. In this sentence,
she = Junko correctly follows the
having finished . . . modifier.
• Although the phrasing is not in sequential order, the sequence makes sense because
having finished a hard day's work (called the "perfect participle") happened in the recent past, after which Junko lay down, after which she felt sleep descend on her.
•
Like means
similar to or
resembling.
-- we can use
like to point out that two things are similar (not the same) because they share characteristics.
-- Junko is very tired. As sleep comes to her (or overcomes her), sleep feels like a soft blanket [being laid over her]. At that point, sleep feels soft and comforting.
KEEP
Quote:
C) After Junko lay down, sleep descended on her having finished a hard day's work like a soft blanket.
•
having finished a hard day's work or a
hard day's work is
not like a soft blanket. Sleep is like a soft blanket.
Even if we do not quite understand the "like a blanket" simile, this phrase is nonsensical:
. . . having finished a hard day's work like a soft blanket. [How, exactly, does a soft
blanket finish a hard day's work? A blanket does not do so. Wrong.
•
her having finished . . . is almost impossible to parse.
There are times when we do use a possessive in front of an ___ING word (a gerund, a verbING).
-- Correct: We made plans for dinner to celebrate his having opened his own business.But in this option we have a preposition, ON. "Sleep descended on _____." On whom?
The preposition ON requires an object that makes sense.
--
her having finished a hard day's work does not make sense.
Sleep descended upon the fact that she had finished a a hard day's work? No. Wrong meaning.
Eliminate C
Quote:
D) After Junko lay down, having finished a hard day's work, sleep had descended on her like a soft blanket.
• as in (A)
sleep does not finish a hard day's work.
•
had descended is incorrect. Sleep is the last-in-time event. Wrong verb.
--
had descended is past perfect, which we construct using [had + past participle (verbED)]
-- past perfect is called "the past of the past." The event depicted by that tense comes
before some other event in the past.
-- the sequence is: (1) Junko finished a hard day's work, (2) Junko lay down, and (3) Junko felt sleep descend on her (like a soft blanket).
We do not use past perfect to describe that last-in-time event. Past perfect is for an action before another past action.
Eliminate D
Quote:
E) After Junko lay down, having completed a hard day's work, sleep descended on her like a soft blanket.
• just as is the case in (A), sleep did not complete a hard day's work. Junko did so.
Eliminate E
The correct answer is B• NOTESMeaning? As usual,
exc4libur is spot on.
This description is excellent..
exc4libur wrote
Quote:
MEANING: After Junko lay down, she fell asleep almost unnoticeably;
Who fell asleep and finished a day's work? Junko or she, not "sleep".
What do we do when a blanket descends on us? We feel it!
We are not comparing "how sleep descended" x "a soft blanket".
We are comparing the feeling of how sleep descended - it descended lightly, almost unnoticeably.
Sequence of events?I will rewrite the sentence with time stamps, as I did in a post below, [urll=https://gmatclub.com/forum/after-junko-lay-down-having-finished-a-hard-day-s-work-sleep-308446.html#p2385355]
here[/color][/url] in which I talked about the comparison a little more than I do in this post.
-- After Junko lay down at 2 a.m., having finished a hard day's work at 1 a.m., she felt sleep descend on her like a soft blanket at 2:15 a.m.
-- Sequence: 1) Junko finished a hard day's work; 2) Junko lay down; and 3) she felt sleep descend on her
Modifier HAVING + PAST PARTICIPLE (verbED)
-- this construction is called perfect participle.
-- Almost always, this construction describes a cause or condition and we hear about the effect in the sentence
Having drunk too much wine, he felt sleepy.
-- This construction also describes an event that is finished but relevant to the present.
-- You can read a little about perfect participles [color=#0000ff]here.
-- Just understand that the phrasing (having verbED) almost always implies a cause and always indicates a finished event still relevant to the present
LIKE a soft blanket-- Good writing includes this kind of comparison in small doses. It's called a simile. Don't memorize the word; understand what it is.
Like means
similar to or
resembling. A writer uses "like" is to show that two things are similar (but not the same) because they share qualities.
The objects of comparison are sleep [that, in descending, overcomes Junko], on one hand, and a blanket, on the other.
In particular, as
exc4libur noted, we are comparing the way it feels when sleep descends to the way a soft blanket feels.
The writer is not saying that sleep and a blanket are
the same. She is saying that in certain aspects they
are similar.
She is saying that when Junko feels sleep descend (overcome her), that sleep feels similar to ("like") a blanket.
Cliche similes:
Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get.Stars glittered like diamonds in the sky.mykrasovski , you must be a Forrest Gump fan.
I had no idea that the "box of chocolates" simile came from that movie.
Confession: I have never seen the film. I suspect that you have. I'm glad I picked something relatable.
We are not looking for strict parallelism between the abstract noun
sleep and the concrete noun
blanket.
We are looking to see whether the comparison makes sense.
Strategyeakabuah , this is at least the second time that you have noticed two nearly identical answers and because they were identical, rejected both.
Smart move.
This question appears deceptively simple.
In a way, it is simple. If we notice that
having finished cannot refer to sleep, we eliminate A, D, and E.
Option C is a disaster.
On the other hand, the question is not simple because it uses simile and seemingly puts verbs out of order in the sentence.
COMMENTSJ2S2019 , I saw a good luck symbol today. I will give it to you and anyone else who takes the test soon.
(I figure that this symbol lasts for about a month. Wild guess.)
I hope this question and my explanation helped everyone to see that simple-looking questions may well be simple—just not in the way you originally thought.
It was brave to post, and everyone explained, even if a bad assumption sent a person to the wrong conclusion. Kudos to all.
close
17 Oct 2019, 22:39
62%
(01:30)
wrong 
Only a few days remaining before my exam.
