Bunuel
Named after Austrian player Marcus Kann and English player Horatio Caro, who defeated reigning champion Jacques Mieses in twenty-four moves with the defense, the Caro-Kann defense has spawned several variations, including the Advance variation and the intriguingly-named Fantasy variation.
(A) Named after Austrian player Marcus Kann and English player Horatio Caro, who defeated reigning champion Jacques Mieses in twenty-four moves with the defense, the Caro-Kann defense has spawned several variations, including
(B) The variations of the Caro-Kann defense, named after Austrian player Marcus Kann, who defeated reigning champion Jacques Mieses in twenty-four moves using the defense, and English player Horatio Caro, have spawned several alternatives, including
(C) The Caro-Kann defense, named after Austrian player Marcus Kann and English player Horatio Caro, who defeated reigning champion Jacques Mieses in twenty-four moves using the defense, has spawned several variations that include
(D) The Caro-Kann defense, named after Austrian player Marcus Kann, who defeated reigning champion Jacques Mieses in twenty-four moves using the defense, and English player Horatio Caro, and has spawned several variations that include
(E) Included among the many variations of the Caro-Kann defense, named after Austrian player Marcus Kann, who defeated reigning champion Jacques Mieses in twenty-four moves using the defense, and English player Horatio Caro, are
Manhattan Prep Official Explanation:First Glance: Differences in the answer choices provide clues about what a problem might be testing. Before reading the sentence, glance at the beginning of the underline and down the beginning (just the beginning!) of the five answer choices to look for one early clue as to what this sentence is testing.
The length of the underline, combined with the fact that the underline starts at the beginning of the sentence, indicates that Sentence Structure, Modifiers, or both may play a role in this problem. A quick glance down the beginning of each choice reveals a two-way structural split, although there are four different words that begin the choices. There is a choice between an “-ed” style word (
Named or
Included) and the word
The followed by a noun (
The variations or
The Caro-Kann defense).
Issues: (1) Modifiers
A
comma who modifier functions similarly to a
comma which modifier: The modifier must clearly describe a specific noun. In the original sentence, the modifier
who defeated reigning champion Jacques Mieses is not clear. Did Horatio Caro defeat Jacques Mieses? Did Marcus Kann defeat Jacques Mieses? Or did both Caro and Kann defeat Mieses? The structure of this modifier is ambiguous. Choice (C) repeats this construction. Eliminate choices (A) and (C).
(2) Parallelism
Choice (D) contains the core sentence structure
The Caro-Kann defense … and has spawned several variations. While the subject and verb agree in number, the word
and shouldn’t be here. This construction would be acceptable if there were two parallel verbs:
The Caro-Kann defense [did something] … and has spawned. In this choice, no other main verb exists that is parallel to
has spawned. Eliminate choice (D).
(3) Meaning
Choice (B) contains the core sentence
The variations … have spawned several alternatives. This illogically implies that the
variations themselves spawned
alternatives, when in fact these two words are synonyms referring to the same thing. Chess players were the ones to create (spawn) the variations / alternatives of the Caro-Kann defense.
The Correct Answer: Choice (E) fixes the ambiguous
comma who modifier in the original and maintains a correct core sentence.