Regarded by opponents as ineffective and meddlesome and by supporters

Can someone please explain - what exactly is the problem with option D ?

Hii anshunadir,
Note that in D, the modifier "regarded by opponents as ineffective and meddlesome and by supporters as a conserver of life and energy" incorrectly points to "the fight over the speed limit". Now you may argue that in E also the modifier is modifying "the fight over the speed limit". No! its not. Here we have used an appositive "a measure" which clearly tells what "fight over speed limit" is.
Hope that helps.
-s

In the correct answer, we have "Regarded by opponents as ineffective... and by supporters as a conserver.." Can someone explain why "Regarded by opponents as ADJECTIVE and by supporters as NOUN" is appropriate? Why do these not have to be parallel?

D. The fight over the speed limit, regarded by opponents as ineffective and meddlesome and by supporters as a conserver of life and energy, continues in our legislatures and on our freeways.

E. The fight over the speed limit, a measure regarded by opponents as ineffective and meddlesome and by supporters as a conserver of life and energy, continues in our legislatures and on our freeways.

This one's good. I basically boiled it down to D & E above. In D, "regarded" modifies "speed limit" instead of "the fight over" the speed limit. In E, adding "a measure" clarifies what "regarded by" is referring to. Proximity of the modified noun is important. The answer is (E).

A. Regarded by opponents as ineffective and meddlesome and by supporters as a conserver of life and energy, the fight over the speed limit continues in our legislatures and on our freeways.
As explained, it is not the fight that is regarded as ineffective/meddlesome/conserver of life and energy - eliminated

B. Regarded by opponents as ineffective and meddlesome and by supporters as a conserver of life and energy, the speed limit continues to be fought over in our legislatures and on our freeways.
hold, although passive voice makes it wordy, and it is not clear who fights over...

C. Regarded by opponents as ineffective meddling and by supporters as the conservation of life and energy, the speed limit continues to be fought over in our legislatures and on our freeways.
changes meaning - ineffective meddling (adverb that is modifying the adjective) is not the same as ineffective and meddlesome (2 adjectives)
as in B, to be fought over is suspicious. Passive voice makes the sentence unnecessary wordy.

D. The fight over the speed limit, regarded by opponents as ineffective and meddlesome and by supporters as a conserver of life and energy, continues in our legislatures and on our freeways.
over the speed limit is a prepositional phrase, the head of the prepositional phrase is the fight. The fight is regarded...this has the same modifier/meaning error as in A.

E. The fight over the speed limit, a measure regarded by opponents as ineffective and meddlesome and by supporters as a conserver of life and energy, continues in our legislatures and on our freeways.
same prepositional phrase as in D, but wait! noun+noun modifier!!! a measure clearly refers to speed limit. Active voice..looks way better than any other choices.

can someone explain the sentence by its meaning.
I believe fight over speed limit is ineffective not that speed limit is ineffective.

The Govt has brought in a speed limit for driving on the fast highways (called freeways because these driveways have fewer hindrances such as speed breaks and signals and allow an unhindered drive for long stretches. The supporters are arguing that the speed limit is a conserver of life and energy; the opponents are saying that such a speed limit as an ineffective and meddlesome step.

This feud is carried between the supporting and opposing MPS and MLAs through debates in the legislatures and between aggressive drivers and passive drivers on the freeways
The essence of the argument is that whether a freeway should be riddled with a cap on the speed limit, which is antithetical to its name that it is a restriction - free drive.

Hi,

I think 'D' and 'E' are equally correct.
In 'D' , " regarded by opponents as ineffective and meddlesome and by supporters as a conserver of life and energy " modifies speed limit. I don't think there should be any doubt about that one as 'verb-ed' modifies preceding noun and speed limit totally qualifies.
Use of noun + noun modifier ,' a measure regarded by opponents as ineffective and meddlesome and by supporters as a conserver of life and energy', seems to be unnecessary.
Tough call between 'D' and 'E'.

souvik101990 waiting for official explanation.

Thanks!

Not always, I suppose. In some circumstances, an ed - modifier may not modify the noun in front. Look at the following sentence.
The Brazilians watched their team losing 7 -1 to Germans, dismayed by their players’ ineptitude.
Here the past participle 'dismayed' modifies the subject name the Brazilians aptly rather than Germans.

Hi daagh,

In that case, wouldn't following be the right way to write it.
Dismayed by their players’ ineptitude, the Brazilians watched their team losing 7 -1 to Germans.

What I'm trying to say is that in the given question, we have eligible noun 'speed limit' just before Verb-ed modifier " regarded by opponents as..." . Why would I think otherwise ? I'm sure there has to be a better explanation.

Thanks!

Well; please look into this solid GMAT OG question (Diabetes, Together With its Serious Complications: OG13- Q6)

Diabetes, together with its serious complications, ranks as the nation's third leading cause of death, surpassed only by heart disease and cancer

(a) ranks as the nation's third leading cause of death, surpassed only
(b) rank as the nation's third leading cause of death, only surpassed
(c) has the rank of the nation's third leading cause of death, only surpassed
(d) are the nation's third leading causes of death, surpassed only
(e) have been ranked as the nation's third leading causes of death, only surpassed

The text uses - third leading cause of death, surpassed only - Now what is ‘surpassed’ modifying. There is a solid noun in front as ‘death’ and would it be correct to say that death is surpassed only by heart disease and cancer?

The next eligible noun is ‘the leading cause’ and therefore, that is the one ‘surpassed’ is modifying.

The OA is A, and the OE given by OG does not even touch about this point. Can you see how context is trumping over convention

Regarded by opponents as ineffective and meddlesome and by supporters as a conserver of life and energy, the fight over the speed limit continues in our legislatures and on our freeways.

A. Regarded by opponents as ineffective and meddlesome and by supporters as a conserver of life and energy, the fight over the speed limit continues in our legislatures and on our freeways.

the fight over the speed limit - is NOT the agenda here.

B. Regarded by opponents as ineffective and meddlesome and by supporters as a conserver of life and energy, the speed limit continues to be fought over in our legislatures and on our freeways.
C. Regarded by opponents as ineffective meddling and by supporters as the conservation of life and energy, the speed limit continues to be fought over in our legislatures and on our freeways.
D. The fight over the speed limit, regarded by opponents as ineffective and meddlesome and by supporters as a conserver of life and energy, continues in our legislatures and on our freeways.

'speed limit' is NOT regarded by opponents as ineffective and meddlesome

E. The fight over the speed limit, a measure regarded by opponents as ineffective and meddlesome and by supporters as a conserver of life and energy, continues in our legislatures and on our freeways.

'speed limit' as a measure - is regarded by opponents as ineffective and meddlesome

E correct.

A. Regarded by opponents as ineffective and meddlesome and by supporters as a conserver of life and energy, the fight over the speed limit continues in our legislatures and on our freeways. - The fight is not regarded as anything by the opponents or the supporters. Incorrect
B. Regarded by opponents as ineffective and meddlesome and by supporters as a conserver of life and energy, the speed limit continues to be fought over in our legislatures and on our freeways. The speed limit itself is not regarded as ineffective and meddlesome, or as a conserver of life and energy. Incorrect
C. Regarded by opponents as ineffective meddling and by supporters as the conservation of life and energy, the speed limit continues to be fought over in our legislatures and on our freeways.The speed limit is not regarded as ineffective meddling. Incorrect
D. The fight over the speed limit, regarded by opponents as ineffective and meddlesome and by supporters as a conserver of life and energy, continues in our legislatures and on our freeways. The speed limit itself is not regarded as ineffective and meddlesome, or as a conserver of life and energy. Incorrect
E. The fight over the speed limit, a measure regarded by opponents as ineffective and meddlesome and by supporters as a conserver of life and energy, continues in our legislatures and on our freeways. The speed limit and the fight over it is reffered as a "measure" Correct

A. Regarded by opponents as ineffective and meddlesome and by supporters as a conserver of life and energy, the fight over the speed limit continues in our legislatures and on our freeways. — modifier error. Eliminate.

B. Regarded by opponents as ineffective and meddlesome and by supporters as a conserver of life and energy, the speed limit continues to be fought over in our legislatures and on our freeways. — prima facie this looked passive to me if you cut out the opening modifier. But I was wrong. I think the issue here is as daagh described - “speed limit continues to be..” no “the fight continues to be..”

C. Regarded by opponents as ineffective meddling and by supporters as the conservation of life and energy, the speed limit continues to be fought over in our legislatures and on our freeways. — “ineffective meddling” and “conservation of” jumped out to me here. I’m not able to pin point errors here but just doesn’t sound right. “Ineffective meddling” is a gerund while conservation of is a noun phrase. It’s not structurally parallel. “Regarded by X as sth and by Y as sth”

D. The fight over the speed limit, regarded by opponents as ineffective and meddlesome and by supporters as a conserver of life and energy, continues in our legislatures and on our freeways. — again a very close contender. I could not exactly say why this is wrong. People have said that -Ed modifier is creating ambiguity in the sense that who is it referring to ie “speed limit” or “fight”. Imo, it should be speed limit and this isn’t ambiguous at all. Anyways let’s keep it.

E. The fight over the speed limit, a measure regarded by opponents as ineffective and meddlesome and by supporters as a conserver of life and energy, continues in our legislatures and on our freeways. — same as D except the Ed modifier is now an appositive modifier. Sorta prefer this over D.

Hello AndrewN IanStewart generis - request you guys to please give your opinion on this one as well as my POE. Though I got the right one but took 4 mins and that was primarily because I wasn’t very confident of my PoE.

Posted from my mobile device

Hello, ravigupta2912. I agree with your analysis of the question, and congratulations on arriving at the correct conclusion. (I myself took 1:50 to answer it correctly, a long time for me on SC.) Some additional notes:

Answer choices (A) through (C) are all left-branching sentences, starting off with a two-pronged modifier that is baseless until we jump across the comma to qualify it. I write sometimes about this very issue in my responses, often to more challenging SC questions. To be clear, the GMAT™ prefers right-branching sentences to their left-branching counterparts. It is not as though you should read every line and get rid of anything that has an introductory phrase or clause, but just keep in the back of your mind that a straightforward [subject] + [verb] sentence is easier to follow, and that the correct answer is based on the clear and concise expression of vital meaning. Among (A), (B), and (C), the original sentence is the worst, for the very reason you outlined. Choice (C) smashes ineffective and meddlesome together to yield ineffective meddling, and that gerund places the focus on some unseen agent doing the meddling. Although I did not eliminate (B) for the reason as daagh, I let it be while I sought a clearer alternative.

Between (D) and (E), the former does indeed leave itself open to interpretation, since a modifier can either modify the previous noun, prior to the comma, or jump over the prepositional phrase to modify a different noun. As long as both interpretations are sensible, they can each be considered valid. I agree that the speed limit itself seems to make more sense as to what is being modified, but I cannot dismiss the other interpretation outright. Could a fight about some issue be seen as ineffective and meddlesome? Certainly. Could that same fight be viewed as a conserver of life and energy? Although this one is more debatable, it would be in keeping with the saying, fight the good fight. Perhaps some people could view the fight for a worthy cause as itself contributing to an improved quality of life. However, choice (E) removes the ambiguity and also adopts a more direct (right-branching) framework. Since we are looking for the best answer of the five presented, we should go with the safest option in (E).

I hope that helps. Thank you for thinking to ask me about this one.

- Andrew

Answer B is passive, everywhere:

• "(the speed limit is) regarded by opponents as ineffective" is passive. An active construction would say "Opponents regard the speed limit as ineffective";

• "the speed limit continues to be fought over" is passive. An active construction would say "Supporters and opponents continue to fight over the speed limit"

That a construction is passive doesn't make it wrong, though. A sentence like "Unlike parking tickets, speeding tickets are often challenged in court" is passive, but if the point of the sentence is to compare parking and speeding tickets, it's the clearest wording one could use. There's no reason to mention the people who challenge speeding tickets if those people aren't relevant to the point the sentence is making, and a sentence like "People who get speeding tickets often challenge them in court while people who get parking tickets do not often challenge them", or whatever active construction you might instead try, is going to be a much less efficient way to express the same idea.

As for the question overall, it's barely in English anyway, so I don't think it deserves much attention. No one who knows what words mean would ever describe speed limits as "meddlesome", for example. Nor would anyone use the phrase "conserver of life and energy" when there are parallel constructions available ("life-saving" is both more idiomatic than "conserver of life" and is parallel to "ineffective"), and more precise wordings available (I don't even know what "conserver of energy" means - what kind of energy? Are we talking about conserving fuel?). And "opponents" are not a group of people out of context, so the sentence should say "its opponents" (to mean the opponents of speed limits specifically). With writing like this, no answer is ever going to seem good. If forced to choose, I'd prefer E to B, because B uses two separate passive constructions (as I explained above), and that's a very awkward way to write. E eliminates one of the passive constructions -- "The fight continues" is active. But really, I'd choose answer F if that were available, because there isn't a well-written sentence among the choices.

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