Like Darwin and his fruitful voyage on the Beagle Bankss trip

Hi Experts
Although the comparison in C seems to be slightly logical when compared to other options, I read that "like" can never be used before prepositional phrases so how can C be correct.

GMATNinja daagh please give your insights!

Thanks in adavnce!

A little late, but Darwin’s fruitful voyage on the Beagle is a noun phrase, not a prepositional phrase.

Anyone please enlighten me on this:
The meaning of the original sentence is that Bank's trip shaped and inspired his career.
However in C: the trip shaped and inspired a career, not necessarily "his". Doesn't this create a difference in meaning from the original sentence?

I rejected C because it said "science" in the end instead of "natural science"

Hello Tdsftu,

I am not sure whether you still have this doubt. Here is the answer nonetheless.


This official sentence "primarily" tests comparison. Choice C is the only answer choice that presents the logical comparison through the correct grammatical structure.

Also, the context of the sentence makes it clear that it means to mention Banks's career. Hence, the omission of the pronoun "his" does not lead to meaning change as such.

We must focus on deterministic errors such as comparison, not on nondeterministic errors such as pronoun usages while solving the SC problems.


Hope this helps.
Thanks.
Shraddha

Hello OliveOyl2005,

I am not sure whether you still have this doubt. Here is the answer nonetheless.


This official sentence "primarily" tests comparison. Choice C is the only answer choice that presents the logical comparison through the correct grammatical structure.

It does not matter so much whether the sentence mentions exactly in which science Banks's made his career. The sentence must [resent logical comparison to present logical meaning. Hence, Choice C is superior to all the answer choices.


Hope this helps.
Thanks.
Shraddha

Like Darwin and his fruitful voyage on the Beagle, Banks’s trip with Captain Cook on the Endeavour inspired and shaped his remarkable career in natural science.

(A) Like Darwin and his fruitful voyage on the Beagle, Banks’s trip with Captain Cook on the Endeavour inspired and shaped his remarkable career in natural science Darwin is being incorrectly compared to "Banks’s trip". Eliminate.

(B) Just as Darwin had a fruitful voyage on the Beagle, Banks’s trip with Captain Cook on the Endeavour inspired and shaped a remarkable career in natural science Same error as in (A). Eliminate.

(C) Like Darwin’s fruitful voyage on the Beagle, Banks’s trip with Captain Cook on the Endeavour inspired and shaped a remarkable career in science Correct answer. Comparison error is eliminated and no new errors are introduced.

(D) Just as Darwin’s fruitful voyage on the Beagle, Banks sailed with Captain Cook on the Endeavour, inspiring and shaping his remarkable career as a natural scientist "Darwin’s fruitful voyage" is incorrectly being compared to "Banks". Eliminated.

(E) Like Darwin’s fruitful voyage on the Beagle, Banks sailed with Captain Cook on the Endeavour, which inspired and shaped a remarkable career in natural science Same error as in (D). Eliminate.

Hope this helps.

Hi, I was stuck between choices A and C. I didn't pick C because I didn't understand the meaning of "a remarkable career". Who had a remarkable career? I just didn't think that was right. I picked A because it compared Darwin and his voyage to Bank's trip so I thought that maybe it could've passed okay as an appropriate comparison. Thanks.

Hello jonbon,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, Option A uses the phrase "Like Darwin and his fruitful voyage on the Beagle", illogically comparing both Darwin's voyage and Darwin himself to Banks’s trip.

Option C avoids this error through the phrase "Like Darwin’s fruitful voyage on the Beagle".

We hope this helps.
All the best!
Experts' Global Team

egmat
Thank you for your helpful reply.

Question 1: I am aware that like can only compare nouns. However, the answer in the Official Guide says that like is a preposition that is normally followed by a noun, noun phrase, or pronoun. Can you use like compare a noun phrase to a noun or let's say a pronoun to a noun phrase?

Question 2: What is an example of "just as" being used correctly in a sentence?

Thank you for your time.

in option B , isn't 'as' used to compare actions? , in that case why are we checking for the noun comparison?
egmat

Hey Taulark1

How are you? How's your prep coming along?

Happy to help you with this!

B: Just as Darwin had a fruitful voyage on the Beagle, Banks’ trip with Captain Cook on the Endeavour inspired and shaped a remarkable career in natural science.

When a sentence starts this way: "Just as Darwin had a fruitful voyage on the Beagle" (Just as someone did something), we must expect the main clause to say "Someone else did something similar". This means, the subject of the main clause must be some other person and the verb must be the same as or similar to the verb in the preceding comparative clause. (We know this because of the words "just as".)

If you change the subject and verb to anything else, you'll distort the idea and create a faulty comparison.

So, for choice B to be correct, we need the subject of the main clause to be "Banks" and the verb/predicate to convey that he had somewhat of a fruitful voyage/trip somewhere. Applying this to B, we'd get something like:

Just as Darwin had a fruitful voyage on the Beagle, Banks took an inspiring trip with Captain Cook on the Endeavour, a trip that shaped a remarkable career in natural science.

In its current form, choice B tells us that Banks' trip did something just as Darwin did something. This is illogical.

So, to conclude, we're not exactly looking for noun comparison. We're ensuring that the structures of the two clauses are identical so that the correct comparison is brought out.


I hope this helps.

Best,

Abhishek

Hi! This question wants you to make the comparison between comparable objects. Only option C compares correctly. Hence, it is the correct answer!

(A) Like Darwin and his fruitful voyage on the Beagle, Banks’s trip with Captain Cook on the Endeavour inspired and shaped his remarkable career in natural science

(B) Just as Darwin had a fruitful voyage on the Beagle, Banks’s trip with Captain Cook on the Endeavour inspired and shaped a remarkable career in natural science

(C) Like Darwin’s fruitful voyage on the Beagle, Banks’s trip with Captain Cook on the Endeavour inspired and shaped a remarkable career in natural science

(D) Just as Darwin’s fruitful voyage on the Beagle, Banks sailed with Captain Cook on the Endeavour, inspiring and shaping his remarkable career as a natural scientist

(E) Like Darwin’s fruitful voyage on the Beagle, Banks sailed with Captain Cook on the Endeavour, which inspired and shaped a remarkable career in natural science

Happy Learning!

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