Remembered almost as an epic among America’s 12,000 Bosnian Muslims is

What will modify what depends on what "epic" means. We say an "epic poem" or an "epic story" etc. A legend means a story. So it makes sense for "remembered almost as an epic" to modify "legend". Neither (A) not (D) does that.

Dear AnthonyRitz GMATGuruNY AjiteshArun IanStewart EducationAisle MartyTargetTestPrep DmitryFarber GMATRockstar GMATNinja VeritasPrepHailey,

I've found that many replies above said "the digging" can't be "epic"

However, IMHO the above reasoning is wrong. The breakdown of the correct answer shows the same:

(E) One of the proudest of family legends, remembered almost as an epic among America’s 12,000 Bosnian Muslims, IS the digging of Chicago’s subway tunnels in the early 1900s.

In choice E., "one of the ... legends" is "an epic" (from non-essential modifier).
Also, "one of the ... legends" is "the digging" (from S-V of the main sentence)

Hence, "one of the ... legends" = "an epic" = "the digging"

Q1. In short, what's the valid reason(s) to eliminate choice A., B., and D.?

Q2. In choice E., what does the non-essential modifier modify?
Does it modify just "the proudest of family legends" or the whole phrase "ONE OF the ... legends"?

varotkorn - I agree with you. I don't really understand all of the discussion about this question. It seems to me if you're going to accept E as a correct answer, you have to grant that "the digging" can be a "legend", because that's precisely what E says. But if "the digging" can be a "legend", it can also be an "epic". So I don't see any a priori reason "legend" needs to modify "epic" and not "the digging". Answer D is clearly wrong though because the clause at the end is almost a dangling modifier (technically it's not, but it is not clear what it refers back to). It's perfectly clear what modifies what in answer E, so that's a better choice.

I find it a very strange sentence to begin with - I don't really understand what meaning is intended by several of the words even in the right answer. So it's understandably a high-level question.

First of all, I think the OG does a fantastic job with its explanation here. I fully endorse it. Please find it near the top of the thread.

An epic is "a long narrative poem in elevated style recounting the deeds of a legendary or historical hero" but can also include "a series of events or body of legend or tradition thought to form the proper subject of an epic." A legend is "a story coming down from the past" or "a person or thing that inspires legends" or "the subject of a legend." Out of all of these, the digging best fits as "a... thing that inspires legends" or "the subject of a legend." The "legend" sort of plays double duty here, taking the sense of "a story coming down from the past" when it is described as being "remembered almost as an epic." But directly saying that the "digging" is "remembered almost as an epic" cuts out an intermediary in a way that makes significantly less sense. The digging is a legend, and that legend is almost an epic. But the digging is not, itself, almost an epic.

Furthermore, nobody is talking enough here about the modifier at the end of the sentence ("one of the proudest of family legends"), and it's a disaster in A and D, where it seems to modify "the early 1900s" or perhaps the "tunnels" themselves. And B loses the "remembered almost as" bit and just says it's "almost an epic" -- taking a further step into metaphor and away from anything that is logical in a literal sense.

In E, "remembered almost as an epic among America’s 12,000 Bosnian Muslims" clearly modifies "one" since "family legends" would not be "an epic."

This question is hard, but it doesn't strike me as a bad or problematic question at all.

The sentence says that the digging of some tunnels is remembered as an epic among members of a community. The digging is also considered one of the proudest of family legends.

The problem with the given sentence is that it presents two separate information about the digging i.e. it is remembered as an epic and it is one of the proudest of family legends. It makes much more sense to say that the digging is a family legend that is remembered almost as an epic.



A. Remembered almost as an epic among America’s 12,000 Bosnian Muslims is the digging of Chicago’s subway tunnels in the early 1900s, one of the proudest of family legends.

Incorrect. For the reason mentioned above.

B. Almost an epic among America’s 12,000 Bosnian Muslims is the digging in the early 1900s of Chicago’s subway tunnels, one of the proudest of family legends.
Incorrect. For the following reasons:
1. This option repeats the error of option A.
2. “the digging is remembered as an epic” makes much more sense than “the digging is an epic”.
3. The modifier “of Chicago’s subway tunnels” is misplaced; as is, it seems we are talking about 1900s of tunnels.

C. Digging Chicago’s subway tunnels in the early 1900s, America’s 12,000 Bosnian Muslims remember it almost as an epic and it is the one of the proudest of family legends.
Incorrect. For the following reasons:
1. “Digging” is a verb-ing modifier for the subject “Bosnian Muslims”. Per the sentence, the Muslims are “digging” at the same time as “remembering” it.
2. The pronoun “it” cannot refer to a modifier “digging”.
3. The two independent clauses are not joined properly. We need a comma+and to connect two independent clauses; the option doesn’t have the comma.

D. America’s 12,000 Bosnian Muslims remember almost as an epic the digging of Chicago’s subway tunnels in the early 1900s, one of the proudest of family legends.
Incorrect. This option has the same error as option A has.

E. One of the proudest of family legends, remembered almost as an epic among America’s 12,000 Bosnian Muslims, is the digging of Chicago’s subway tunnels in the early 1900s.
Correct. This option connects the two pieces of information about “digging” in the most logical manner. The main sentence is that one of the proudest of family legends is the digging. The modifier “remembered” modifies “one of the proudest of family legends”. It makes more sense to say that one of the legends is remembered as an epic.

Interesting explanations and discussions. Most of the explanations are getting into the meaning—what does the word “legend” mean OR what does the word “epic” mean... why are we supposed to get into all that? I am a big believer of the fact that we should first understand the meaning of the sentence, and then we must look for the correct structure(modifiers, pronouns, idioms etc etc), but clearly not everyone can comprehend that legend can be remembered as an epic, not digging. So this word- meaning aspect is a bit weird in this specific question, considering that gmat is made for both native English speakers and non-native English speakers... even if I go by what a lot of people in the discussion have already mentioned ie the fact that a legend can be remembered as an epic, digging itself cannot be remembered as an epic, well, then also, logically, digging=legend. So if I say that digging itself can be remembered as an epic, I am not really wrong.

Below is my analysis, @ajitisharun GMATNinja , please feel free to give your inputs, would really appreciate your help.

Option A—

the core sentence is- “remembered almost as an epic is the digging, one of the proudest of family legends” ... i do agree that “one of the proudest of family legends” should be as close as possible to “digging”, BUT “of Chicago’s subway tunnels in the early 1900s” is a prepositional phrase modifying digging.. so what really is wrong with this option?

Again, I agree that “one of the proudest of family legends” should be as close as possible to “digging”. Hence I will have to see whether there are any better options.


Option B—

The core sentence is- “almost as an epic is the digging, one of the proudest of the family legends” .. we can clearly see that there is a difference between “Almost as an epic” and “remembered almost as an epic” so we have proper meaning issue here.. so this option doesn’t seem awesomely correct. Also, this option again has the same issue as in option A ie the modifier “one of the proudest of the family legends” is not really close to “digging” . Also “of the Chicago’s subway tunnels” seems to modify “1900s” as per the given structure, which is obviously illogical. We have reasons to eliminate this option, but let us see the other options first.


Option C—

The core sentence is- “digging the tunnels in 1900s, Bosnian Muslims .....” .. going by what information is in the original sentence, we cannot infer that the Bosnian Muslims did the digging. In fact we don’t know who did the digging so we can rule this out on the basis of intended meaning. Also, the pronoun it doesn’t seem to have any antecedent. C is definitely out


Option D—

The core sentence is “Bosnian Muslims remember almost as an epic the digging, one of the proudest of the family legends”

This option, IMO, is similar to option A. I can’t see any obvious errors.


Option E—

This option has done something clever in terms of structure. The core sentence is “one of the proudest of family legends is the digging” ... so now we have the modifier “one of the proudest of family legends” and “digging” as a logical core sentence. Hence E seems like the best bet.

Now the point that I am trying to make is that why are we getting into or why are we expected to know what “legend” means or what “epic” means? Just because the correct option has the modifier “remembered almost as an epic among Bosnian Muslims” modifying the noun “family legends” doesn’t mean that we are expected to sort of know right from the start that “remembered ...” has to modify “family legends”

Am I making sense GMATNinja AjiteshArun ??

PS: I might have skipped a few names of the experts, apologies for that, nothing
against you lovely people.. please feel free to provide your inputs/suggestions

Looking forward to hearing from you all

Best regards,

Posted from my mobile device

Remembered almost as an epic among America’s 12,000 Bosnian Muslims is the digging of Chicago’s subway tunnels in the early 1900s, one of the proudest of family legends.

(A) Remembered almost as an epic among America’s 12,000 Bosnian Muslims is the digging of Chicago’s subway tunnels in the early 1900s, one of the proudest of family legends.

'one of the proudest of family legends' is incorrectly placed -- should be close to 'an epic'.

(B) Almost an epic among America’s 12,000 Bosnian Muslims is the digging in the early 1900s of Chicago’s subway tunnels, one of the proudest of family legends.

'one of the proudest of family legends' is incorrectly placed -- should be close to 'an epic'.

(C) Digging Chicago’s subway tunnels in the early 1900s, America’s 12,000 Bosnian Muslims remember it almost as an epic and it is the one of the proudest of family legends.

Not sure what 'it' refers to here.

(D) America’s 12,000 Bosnian Muslims remember almost as an epic the digging of Chicago’s subway tunnels in the early 1900s, one of the proudest of family legends.

'one of the proudest of family legends' is incorrectly placed -- should be close to 'an epic'.

(E) One of the proudest of family legends, remembered almost as an epic among America’s 12,000 Bosnian Muslims, is the digging of Chicago’s subway tunnels in the early 1900s.

Correct. The blue portion describes the section in green.

Answer is E.

One thing to note about (C) is how the Bosnian Muslims are REMEMBERing while they are DIGGING.

Hi DmitryFarber egmat

As per my understanding, "proudest legend" is "digging of the tunnel", Now if I am correct in this, then if we refer option A,

Remembered almost as an epic among America’s 12,000 Bosnian Muslims is the digging of Chicago’s subway tunnels in the early 1900s, one of the proudest of family legends.


----> one of the proudest of family legends.--> this is a noun modifier.
And as we know, noun modifier can be placed faraway, if there is another modifier, whose position can't be changed.
Also noun modifier, can modify any entity, that is, it can zoom in to modify, noun/verb/clause.

So in Option A,

in the early 1900s--> it is a modifier, which tells the time of digging, and is placed correctly, as it can't be placed faraway.
Also, one of the proudest of family legends.---> this should correctly modify, "digging of chicago's subway tunnels"

So what exactly is wrong here?

Hi - i have intentionally NOT seen the way to eliminate. I picked D primarily because of emphasis.

I eliminated E because of a non-grammatical reason (E'S emphasis)

This strategy of 'emphasis' was used for another SC problem Like here

--------------


I asked myself -- why did the author write this ? What is the author's focus when doing this SC ?

I came up with the following with what the author wants to focus on



In every case in my above examples / anologies - the emphasis is on a community remembering some incident (Good or bad)

Thus i thought -- "[community] remember" has to be a part of the essential clause -- '[community] remember' SHOULD NOT be dropped (i.e become part of non-essential clause)

I thought E's emphasis was on the 'incident' itelf and not on '[community] remembering some incident"'

Thus i eliminated E

Thoughts on why you think this strategy isnt playing out or perhaps I am thinking about the emphasis, incorrectly to begin with ?

Feel free to respond on Sunday itself

jabhatta2 don't beat yourself up over this one, it's a super difficult sentence, especially in terms of the intended meaning.
The trick is to realize that the 'incident', in this case, never actually happened. Rather, there's a legend about an incident.
In order to realize that we must know the definition of the word "epic".
An epic is a work of art or legend conveying heroic deeds.

Knowing that, we can conclude that the thing that must be remembered as almost an epic is the legend.
So it stands to reason that the author wanted to tell us about this legend (the digging is a proud family legend), and elaborate (with a modifier) on the fact that this legend is remembered as an epic.

So, I think in this case you guessed incorrectly what the author's intended meaning was. But, again, in this particular problem that's incredibly difficult to do well.

I'm assuming there must be a lot of people here scratching their heads because they just couldn't possibly understand the meaning of the sentence, far from getting the right answer. So here's a breakdown of the sentence & its meaning along with option analysis.

"Remembered almost as an epic among America’s 12,000 Bosnian Muslims" means that the event or story of the digging of Chicago's subway tunnels is remembered and celebrated by the Bosnian Muslim community in America in a grand and significant way. The word "epic" in the original sentence suggests that the 'Digging of Chicago's tunnels' is regarded as a heroic, larger-than-life tale or achievement. Rather, it would be clearer if a story or 'Legend' is regarded as an Epic.

is the digging of Chicago’s subway tunnels in the early 1900s - The epic tale is modifying 'Digging of Chicago's subway tunnels'


one of the proudest of family legends - "One of the proudest of family legends" refers to the digging of Chicago's subway tunnels being considered one of the most significant and esteemed stories or achievements within the Bosnian Muslim families. In this context, "legends" refers to stories or tales that are passed down through generations.

The correct meaning of the sentence should be - Bosnian Muslim community in America holds the story of their ancestors digging Chicago's subway tunnels in high regard, considering it a grand and heroic tale, and viewing it as one of their most cherished and esteemed family legends.

Now that we have understood the context of the sentence, lets jump to error analysis for each option


(A) Remembered almost as an epic among America’s 12,000 Bosnian Muslims is the digging of Chicago’s subway tunnels in the early 1900s, one of the proudest of family legends.

Error 1 : The original sentence implies that the 'Epic' was 'Digging of chicago's subway tunnels' . It would be clearer if we could say that the family legends were remembered as an epic or in this case 'One of the family legends' was remembered as an epic and that family legend was about the diggin of the chicago's tunnels.

Error 2 : Its not very clear what 'one of the proudest of family legends' should be modifying.

(B), (D) have similar errors.

(C) - Were America's 12,000 bosnian muslims digging the tunnels? Atleast thats what this options seems to be implying.

(E) is correct - Two modifiers places one after the other.

Dear Jon,

Your analysis is always very educative and is very fun to read. I have a question: can we use adverbial phrase as a subject of a clause in the same way we can use noun phrase as a subject of a cluse.

As an example: Remembered almost as an epic among America’s 12,000 Bosnian Muslims is the digging of Chicago’s subway tunnels in the early 1900s. Is this sentence correct?

The best defense against the atom bomb(Noun phrase) is not to be there when it goes off. -- this is correct.

If Jon is not available, then guidances from other experts are very much welcome.

Hi SKGM

Sorry for the late reply. I rarely visit this forum these days. Yes, the sentence you mentioned is grammatically correct. However, “Remembered almost as an epic among America’s 12,000 Bosnian Muslims” is not the subject of the sentence. It actually functions as a participial phrase that modifies the subject of the sentence. The main subject of the sentence is "the digging of Chicago's subway tunnels in the early 1900s."

The participial phrase provides additional information about how the digging of Chicago's subway tunnels is remembered by the Bosnian Muslim community. It describes the perception or viewpoint of the subject (how the subject is viewed or perceived by Bosnian Muslims), rather than being the subject itself.

To rephrase the sentence to make it clearer, the structure can be modified:

"The digging of Chicago's subway tunnels in the early 1900s is remembered almost as an epic among America's 12,000 Bosnian Muslims."

The sentence basically says “The digging of some tunnels is remembered as an epic (poem)” or even more concisely “A is remembered as B”. The inverted version of this sentence will be “Remembered as B is A” or “Remembered as an epic is the digging of some tunnels”. Such a structure, in which the subject (the digging…) follows the verb (is remembered) is called Inversion. A similar example:

- Gone are the days when this world used to be a safe place (inverted sentence)
- The days when this world used to be a safe place are gone (normal sentence)

More about such inversion read here: https://www.perfect-english-grammar.com/inversion.html

GMAT Sc problems with inversion: https://gmatwithcj.com/tag/sc-inverted-structure/

egmat MartyTargetTestPrep AndrewN GMATNinja Usually legend refers to a person for example Sachin Tendulkar is a cricket legend. In this sentence, legend refers to Sachin. But in this gmat question, legend refers to digging(an activity). Can you please further explain how an activity be a legend?

A legend was originally a widely told or traditional story of something that occurred in the past, generally a significant event and often an event that may or may not have actually occurred.

The word "legend" has also become used to name anything legendary, basically anything worth telling the story of. So, for instance, a person who has done something significant such that the story of this person is widely told is called a legend.

So, in the context of this sentence, what's meant is that the digging of the tunnel became something akin to the subject of legends, or traditional stories about a great event.

MartyTargetTestPrep How one can figure it our that (in this case) legend is referring to the digging not the Muslims??