When a passenger aircraft crashed in the jungles near the village of T

Question

When a passenger aircraft crashed in the jungles near the village of Triskiti, local tribesmen collected pieces of the broken plane before they could be carefully examined where they had fallen, unintentionally thwarting the efforts of investigators that already were made difficult by the remoteness of the crash site.
Source: Manhattan

A. unintentionally thwarting the efforts of investigators that already were made difficult by the remoteness of

B. unintentionally thwarting the efforts of investigators, which already were made difficult by the remoteness of

C. unintentionally thwarting the efforts of investigators, that had already been were made difficult by the remoteness of

D. unintentionally thwarting the efforts of investigators, and already were made difficult by the remoteness of

E. unintentional in thwarting the efforts of investigators, and already were made difficult by the remote location of

Source: Manhattan

fitzpratik · Accepted Answer

Answer is B?

My 2 cents:

C is wrong because:  had already been were made   is unidiomatic
D is wrong because:  and already were made difficult by the remoteness of  error in parallelism
E is wrong because:  unintentional in thwarting the efforts  correct usage has to be  unintentionally

So it boils down to A OR B

A is wrong because "THAT" should introduce an essential clause. but the information that follows "THAT" is not essential.

B:
I assume the query must be that "Which" should modify investigators, But the local tribesmen thwarted the  EFFORTS OF INVESTIGATORS , not the investigators themselves, so which, here refers to  EFFORTS OF INVESTIGATORS  and these efforts were difficult.

Experts may provide a better solution.

generis · Answer

The GMAT will not make a test taker decide whether information is essential. (Only one modifying structure will be correct grammatically, as is the case here.)

When referring to  people , the relative  pronoun is always   who   , and never   that  . 
 
Correct. 
-- "which" can modify a noun phrase ( efforts  of investigators)
-- "which" can "reach back to" a noun followed by modifiers, because: 
-- the phrase  of investigators  is essential; 
-- essential modifiers "trump" nonessential ones in terms of proximity to what is being modified; and
--  of investigators  cannot be placed elsewhere in the sentence.

that  signals essential information. Essential information is never set off by a comma or commas.

This sentence is a fragment. There are not two independent clauses.

Fragment as in (D).
A location does not make investigative efforts difficult. The location's  remoteness  does.

Manhattan GMAT and Manhattan Prep are not the same company.

Manhattan Prep publishes highly recommended books, especially the Sentence Correction Guide. 
 In this post  a representative of Manhattan Prep
describes the confusion.

This question comes from Manhattan GMAT. 
The quality of the company's questions is uneven.

Regardless of prep company, no company can replicate official questions.

Answers in this question at the moment are split between A and B.
Almost 60 percent chose (A). The other ~40 percent chose B.

We don't have to decide the issue because only (B) has no grammar errors, but if you want to check whether (B) will work, omit the entire WHICH clause.
-- the remaining sentence is fine 
-- Villagers picked up pieces of a crashed plane, unintentionally thwarting the efforts of investigators.

In other words, removing the WHICH clause does not damage the core meaning of the sentence.

Grammarians online and in books are split on the issue of whether "that" can refer to people. 
GMAC is not split.  People  are modified by  who .

The answer is B.

anvesh004 · Answer

Yes, the answer is B.

But i couldn't understand what is "which" referring to. 
I am assuming that  which  is referring to  Noun  "investigators". But can  which  refer to a  Noun phrase  "Efforts of investigators" ??

fitzpratik · Answer

Here  which  refers to the efforts of investigators, as the tribesmen thwarted the efforts of investigators and not the investigators themselves. 
So  Which  is referring to "Efforts of investigators", not "Investigators"

surendrasaini1 · Answer

When a passenger aircraft crashed in the jungles near the village of Triskiti, local tribesmen collected pieces of the broken plane before they could be carefully examined where they had fallen, unintentionally thwarting the efforts of investigators that already were made difficult by the remoteness of the crash site.
Source: Manhattan

A.) unintentionally thwarting the efforts of investigators that already were made difficult by the remoteness of(thwarting modifies the verb collected,that introduces an essential information,correct)

B.) unintentionally thwarting the efforts of investigators, which already were made difficult by the remoteness of(that is more appropriate)

C.) unintentionally thwarting the efforts of investigators, that had already been were made difficult by the remoteness of(two verbs are used)

D.) unintentionally thwarting the efforts of investigators, and already were made difficult by the remoteness of( use of and is not correct as it was the efforts of investigators that were made difficult, that is required )

E.) unintentional in thwarting the efforts of investigators, and already were made difficult by the remote location of( same as in D)

Will go with choice A.

Thanks

anvesh004 · Answer

I was in an impression that " which " can only modify preceding  Noun , But not Preceding  Noun Phrase. 
So, can I consider that "which" can modify either Noun or Noun phrase depending on the context. ?

fitzpratik · Answer

Which can modify nouns placed away from the comma.
Have a look at this sentence from OG13 -Question 29

Emily Dickinson’s letters to Susan Huntington Dickinson, which were written over a period beginning a few years before Susan’s marriage to Emily’s brother and ending shortly before Emily’s death in 1886, outnumber her letters to anyone else.

anvesh004 · Answer

Thank you. I's much clear now.

aa008 · Answer

fitzpratik

i highly doubt that information that follows THAT is not essential.

without the information , you will miss how it becomes more difficult.

gvij2017 · Answer

.....efforts of investigators, which....
Now place each efforts and investigators in place of which and learn does the sentence make sense with each placement. No.
Only with "efforts" placement will make sentence meaningful and correct.

I think we can use this strategy on other SC problems. 
Moreover, 
that adds only essential information to noun. 
which can add both essential and non-essential information to noun.

Skywalker18 · Answer

In my opinion, this is not a case in which we can surely say whether the part that follows "that"/"which" - "already were made difficult by the remoteness of the crash site."- is essential or non-essential.

Is there a concrete reason to chose B over A?

AjiteshArun  ,  GMATNinja  ,  MagooshExpert  ,  GMATGuruNY  ,  VeritasPrepBrian  ,  MartyMurray  ,  DmitryFarber  ,  daagh  ,  generis  , other experts - please enlighten

GMATGuruNY · Answer

The purpose of a  that -modifier is to provide ESSENTIAL information that RESTRICTS the scope of the modified noun.
Since a  that -modifier provides essential information, it cannot be removed without changing the basic meaning of the sentence.
Here's A:
 Local tribesmen collected pieces of the broken plane, unintentionally thwarting THE EFFORTS THAT ALREADY WERE MADE DIFFICULT BY THE REMOTENESS OF THE CRASH SITE .
Here, the  that -modifier restricts the scope of the noun EFFORTS.
The implication is that the tribesmen were thwarting not ALL of the investigators' efforts but only a PARTICULAR SUBSET of these efforts:
 efforts THAT ALREADY WERE MADE DIFFICULT BY THE REMOTENESS OF THE CRASH SITE .
Not the intended meaning.

The purpose of a  which -modifier is to provide NONESSENTIAL information -- information that DOES NOT RESTRICT the scope of the modified noun.
Since a  which -modifier provides nonessential information, it can be removed without changing the basic meaning of the sentence.
Here's the OA, with the non-essential  which -modifier omitted:
 Local tribesmen collected pieces of the broken plane, unintentionally thwarting the efforts of investigators. 
This is the intended meaning -- that the tribesmen were thwarting ALL of the investigators' efforts.

That said, I question the validity of the OA.
Generally, COMMA + VERBing serves to modify the NEAREST preceding action and the agent of this action.
OA:  Local tribesmen collected pieces of the broken plane before they could be carefully examined where  they had fallen , unintentionally thwarting the efforts of investigators. 
Here, COMMA +  thwarting  seems to modify the clause in red, implying that   they   -- pieces of the broken plane -- were THWARTING the efforts of the investigators.
The intended meaning is that the TRIBESMEN were thwarting the efforts of investigators.
I would not include this SC in my studies.

Timebomb · Answer

Can anyone explain that how ,+ING modifier thwarting , in this case, is modifying the subject local tribesmen? To me it looks like modifying the subj ft of previous clause "they".

Posted from my mobile device

daagh · Answer

generis wrote

I have a request to the admin. Whenever the Manhattan GMAT questions are posted in the club, is there a way to tag them as questions from the inferior Manhattan Review company and not from the illustrious Manhattan Prep? We can simply skip them.

shahidomer77 · Answer

As you can read from above explanations that the answer is B .
I will tell the difference between that and which in simple words
That refers to particular thing
Which refers to general thing

Kudos please

AliciaSierra · Answer

I am sharing GMATGuruNY's take on this SC. https://gmatclub.com/forum/?href=-a-pass ... 94675.html It helped me. I hope it will help others too. The purpose of a that-modifier is to provide ESSENTIAL information that RESTRICTS the scope of the modified noun. Since a that-modifier provides essential information, it cannot be removed without changing the basic meaning of the sentence. Here's A: Local tribesmen collected pieces of the broken plane, unintentionally thwarting THE EFFORTS THAT ALREADY WERE MADE DIFFICULT BY THE REMOTENESS OF THE CRASH SITE. Here, the that-modifier restricts the scope of the noun EFFORTS. The implication is that the tribesmen were thwarting not ALL of the efforts of investigators but only a PARTICULAR TYPE of effort: efforts THAT ALREADY WERE MADE DIFFICULT BY THE REMOTENESS OF THE CRASH SITE. Not the intended meaning. The purpose of a which-modifier is to provide NONESSENTIAL information -- information that DOES NOT RESTRICT the scope of the modified noun. Since a which-modifier provides nonessential information, it can be removed without changing the basic meaning of the sentence. Here's the OA, with the non-essential which-modifier omitted: Local tribesmen collected pieces of the broken plane, unintentionally thwarting the efforts of investigators. This is the intended meaning. The referent for which cannot be a person. Thus, in the OA, it's clear that which refers to efforts.

CRACKGMATNUT · Answer

Hi  EducationAisle , can you help here ?

VerbalBot · Answer

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When a passenger aircraft crashed in the jungles near the village of T

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