Precisely because he was vilified and murdered by a man as monstrous a

Question

Precisely because he was vilified and murdered by a man as monstrous as Stalin,  there is a tendency for people to view Trotsky's violent acts as  heroic rather than savage.

A. there is a tendency for people to view Trotsky's violent acts as
B. the violence of Trotsky tends to be viewed as
C. Trotsky, who also participated in violent acts, tends to be viewed by people as
D. Trotsky tends to be viewed by people with violent acts as
E. there is a tendency for people to view Trotsky's violent acts to be

daagh · Answer

C due to proper modification and proper word order.

sayantanc2k · Answer

Possessive nouns are not good antecedents of pronouns. The pronoun  he  requires  Trotsky  as its antecedent, not  Trotsky's  or  of Trotsky . Hence options A,B and E are out. Moreover  view X as Y  is the correct idiom, whereas option E wrongly uses  view X to be Y.

Option D erroneously implies that Trotsky tends to be viewed by people, who has violet acts ( people with violent acts ).

Option C eliminates all the errors above.

thangvietname · Answer

I do not know the meaning of the word "savage", so I can not do this question. sc tests logic so, meaning of important words is key

chetan2u · Answer

HI,
Although the GMAT would expect all of us to know these meanings, the answer is not dependent on the word 'savage', but on grammatical sense only..
it is testing us on modifiers, which helps us in eliminating A,B and E..

Between C and D, " people with violent acts" in D changes the meaning..
So C is the answer and is totally dependent on grammatical part..

sleepynut · Answer

Hi,
Is it the Trotsky himself or his act viewed as heroic?
The original sentence suggests that the his act is viewed as heroic.

I could eliminate option "A" and "E" as "he" could not refer to "Trotsky's" .
But not sure with whether this concept is a rule of thumb for option "B":he --> of "Trotsky".
Additionally,I feel weird about "viewed by people".Do we really need "by people"?

Hence,my take is "B".
Please help elaborate

sayantanc2k · Answer

I am in agreement with your reasoning. There is no solid ground to eliminate B.

Here the first part of the sentence ( Precisely because he was vilified and murdered by a man as monstrous as Stalin ) is NOT a modifier, but a dependent clause and hence does not require to refer to the noun it touches - it is alright to start the independent clause with "the violence of Trotsky" or "Trotsky".

sayantanc2k · Answer

In my opinion, B should be the OA. (already explained here: precisely-because-he-was-vilified-and-murdered-by-a-man-as-monstrous-a-212486.html#p1779363). The problem that I see with C is that the term "heroic" is generally used to refer to a deed or action of a person - for referring to a person, the correct word is "hero". Trotsky is viewed as a hero......correct. Trotsky's deeds were viewed as heroic.... correct. Although, "violence of Trotsky" is somewhat awkward, the other options have more serious issues.

anje29 · Answer

Hi,
I also found the same issue but in B he doesn't have clear referrant or it can not refer to Trotsky as it is in prepositional phrase. Please confirm

sayantanc2k · Answer

The concept that a pronoun cannot refer to a noun within a prepositional phrase is not correct..

In B, the pronoun "he" has a clear antecedent: "Trotsky". There is no other noun in the sentence that "he" might refer to ("Stalin" cannot be the antecedent, because then the reflexive pronoun " himself" should be there after "Stalin", and then though grammatically correct, the sentence would make an absurd sense).

abhishekdadarwal2009 · Answer

Precisely because he was vilified and murdered by a man as monstrous as Stalin, there is a tendency for people to view Trotsky's violent acts as heroic rather than savage.

A. there is a tendency for people to view Trotsky's violent acts as
B. the violence of Trotsky tends to be viewed as 
 C. Trotsky, who also participated in violent acts, tends to be viewed by people as 
 D. Trotsky tends to be viewed by people with violent acts as
E. there is a tendency for people to view Trotsky's violent acts to be

They are dependent phrases and cannot stand alone, while the first phrase is referring to a person and so the first sentence has to be the person who is being referred.
option C and D are the better than the rest of the sentences.

While option D presents action by Trotsky and not modifying Trotsky. Option C is better than the rest.

arbazfatmi1994 · Answer

How can C be correct? Heroic and savage can't refer to a person but to a person's actions. I am confused.

Precisely because he was vilified and murdered by a man as monstrous a

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GMAT Sentence Correction (SC - EA only) Questions

Precisely because he was vilified and murdered by a man as monstrous a

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