TOYNBEE ANSWER
OFFICIAL EXPLANATIONProject SC Butler: Sentence Correction (SC2)
Quote:
Toynbee was a scholar of Greece and Rome, with a preference for the former, and a close student of Byzantium and of the modern Balkans are apparent on every page of his last book.
• The first thing that should jump out at you is the jarring verb
are.See my analysis of option A, below.
• strategy lesson
The sentence is nonsensical. I would not—and did not—waste time trying to figure out from the prompt what the sentence was trying to say.
I moved to option B, which was not much help.
Option C let me know that this sentence is testing
noun clauses. Noun clauses are singular.
I write about noun clauses
in this post, here.This question offers us a good strategy lesson: when the prompt is awful but you are not sure why, do not waste time trying to figure out what to do with option A.
Ready?
Keep that option, but do so tentatively and be looking for an option that makes things clearer and/or allows you to pinpoint the basis of error in the options you keep.
Many of you are taught to understand the meaning of the sentence before you start.
I often do not agree with that approach.
If need be, I use all five options to understand meaning and to spot issues.
If I cannot eliminate an answer based on a clear error by the time I have finished reading it, I keep that option.
Try giving yourself three seconds to decide whether to eliminate an option.
If you cannot eliminate the answer, keep it and move on.
We are not looking for the best answer.
We are looking for the four worst answers.
Very often, reading through the options gives us insight into what the sentence should say and which answers fail to express its meaning.
If you do not like my advice and feel more comfortable trying to sort out meaning from the prompt, ignore what I am saying.• Meaning?
The fact that Toynbee was a scholar of Greece and Room, and a close student of Byzantium and of the modern Balkans
is apparent on every page of his last book.
• Issue tested: noun clauses and the fact that they are singular.
Quote:
A) Toynbee was a scholar of Greece and Rome, with a preference for the former, and a close student of Byzantulum and of the modern Balkans are apparent on every page of his last book.
• what the heck is the subject? The modern Balkans? No.
→ The phrase
the modern Balkans is the object of the preposition
of.→
RULE:
The object of a preposition is never the subject of a sentence. Wrong:
Of the modern Balkans are apparent on every page.• No subject exists for the verb
are• The problem at the moment is the lack of subject, not the verb
are. (The verb
are becomes a problem.)
ELIMINATE A
Quote:
B) Toynbee being a scholar of Greece and Rome, with a preference for the former, and a close student of Byzantium and of the modern Balkans are apparent on every page of his last book.
• be wary of
being.
• same problem as that in A:
no subject exists for the to be verb
areELIMINATE B
Quote:
C) That Toynbee was a scholar of Greece and Rome, with the preference for the former, and a close student of Byzantium and of the modern Balkans are apparent on every page of his last book.
• Aha. Suddenly the word
that appears.
When "that" shows up at the beginning of the sentence, it often means
the fact that.
• Now we have a noun clause:
[the fact] That Toynbee was a scholar of Greece and Rome, with the preference for the former, and a close student of Byzantium and of the modern Balkans• that whole thing, the noun clause, is the subject of the sentence. And that whole thing is singular.
• the verb
are is plural. Subject-verb disagreement.
ELIMINATE C
Quote:
D) That Toynbee was a scholar of Greece and Rome, with a preference for the former, and a close student of Byzantium and of the modern Balkans is apparent on every page of his last book.
• looks good: in contrast to A and B, (D) contains a subject. In contrast to (C), option D gets the verb correct.
→ Noun phrases are always singular. They take the verb
isKEEP
Quote:
E) Toynbee, a scholar of Greece and Rome with a preference for the former, and a close student of Byzantium and of the modern Balkans, which is apparent on every page of his last book.
• what does
which refer to? No antecedent exists.
What is apparent on every page?
• If in doubt, compare to (D). What is apparent on every page? [The fact] that Toynbee was a certain kind of scholar.
No contest. D wins.
The correct answer is D.NotesEveryone who posted had exactly the right idea or instinct about each option, but as far as I can tell, no one mentioned noun clauses, which can also be called
nominal clauses or
substantive clauses. I don't care whether you know the jargon.
I do care whether you understand that a long clause—itself with a subject and verb!—can be the subject of a sentence (or the object of a verb, or other things).
Let's just formalize what you all cleverly saw:
Something basic is wrong with options A, B, and E..
Options A and B explicitly lack subjects.
Option E's
which contains no antecedent and so lands us in the same place as A and B.
Furthermore, noun phrases as subjects are singular—and they are more common on the GMAT than you might realize.
Noun phrase as subject:
How people respond to failure or mistakes is a good measure of character.
Noun phrases can be used as objects of a verb, this way: I saw
who stole the cookies.
COMMENTSbm2201 and
Iceman2020 , welcome to SC Butler.
I apologize for the tardiness of this answer. I'm moving to a new place. I do not advise trying to move in the middle of a pandemic.
Reported numbers in my part of the U.S. are rising rapidly. Thanks for your patience. I will catch up.
These answers range from good to very good. Nice work. Kudos to all.
close
31 May 2020, 00:22
35%
(medium)
30%
(01:55)
wrong 
