burnttwinky wrote:
Prospecting for gold during the California gold rush was a relatively easy task, because of erosion, prehistoric glacier movement, and ancient, gold-bearing riverbeds thrust to the surface by volcanic activity put gold literally within reach for anybody with a pan or shovel.
(A) because of erosion, prehistoric glacier movement, and ancient, gold-bearing riverbeds thrust to the surface by volcanic activity put gold literally within reach for
(B) because of erosion, prehistoric glacier movement, and volcanic activity that thrust ancient, gold-bearing riverbeds to the surface, and putting gold literally within reach of
(C) owing to erosion, prehistoric glacier movement, and volcanic activity that had thrust ancient, gold-bearing riverbeds to the surface, and putting gold literally within reach of
(D) since erosion, prehistoric glacier movement, and volcanic activity that thrust ancient, gold-bearing riverbeds to the surface, putting gold literally within reach for
(E) since erosion, prehistoric glacier movement, and ancient, gold-bearing riverbeds thrust to the surface by volcanic activity put gold literally within reach of
This question is based on Sentence Structure and Parallelism.
A) because of erosion, prehistoric glacier movement, and ancient, gold-bearing riverbeds thrust to the surface by volcanic activity put gold literally within reach for The preposition ‘for’ is incorrect after the phrase “within reach”. The correct usage is ‘within reach of’.
This option lacks the relative pronoun ‘that’, which would connect the first part of the sentence to the second. So, the option should have been as following –
because of erosion, prehistoric glacier movement, and ancient, gold-bearing riverbeds thrust to the surface by volcanic activity
that put gold literally within reach for
For these two reasons,
Option A can be eliminated.
B)because of erosion, prehistoric glacier movement, and volcanic activity that thrust ancient, gold-bearing riverbeds to the surface, and putting gold literally within reach ofThe intended meaning of the sentence is that prospecting for gold during the California Gold rush was relatively easy because of certain things that put gold within reach of anybody with a pan or shovel.
The construction of Option B conveys the meaning that prospecting for gold was easy because of erosion, prehistoric glacier movement, volcanic activity, and putting gold within reach…. However, the intended meaning is that the first three things put gold within reach of anybody with a pan or shovel. If erosion, prehistoric glacier movement etc. are part of a list, there is a lack of parallelism in this option as ‘putting’ is not parallel to the rest of the items in the list. So,
Option B can be eliminated.
C) owing to erosion, prehistoric glacier movement, and volcanic activity that had thrust ancient, gold-bearing riverbeds to the surface, and putting gold literally within reach ofOption C corrects the error in Option B by introducing the relative pronoun ‘that’. However, such a construction requires ‘thrust’ and ‘putting’ to be parallel to each other, which they are not in this option.
So,
Option C can be eliminated.
D) since erosion, prehistoric glacier movement, and volcanic activity that thrust ancient, gold-bearing riverbeds to the surface, putting gold literally within reach forOption D contains the same idiomatic error as Option A. The placement of the relative pronoun ‘that’ and the participle ‘putting’ make Option D a sentence fragment. So,
Option D also can be ruled out.
E) since erosion, prehistoric glacier movement, and ancient, gold-bearing riverbeds thrust to the surface by volcanic activity put gold literally within reach ofThis option has the verb ‘put’ for the subject “erosion, prehistoric glacier movement and ancient, gold-bearing riverbeds thrust to the surface by volcanic activity”. The phrase “thrust to the surface by volcanic activity” modifies the noun, ‘riverbeds’. The idiomatic error in Options A and D has also been corrected in this option.
Therefore, E is the most appropriate option.Jayanthi Kumar.