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Rivaling the pyramids of Egypt or even the ancient cities of the Maya

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Re: Rivaling the pyramids of Egypt or even the ancient cities of the Maya [#permalink] New post   18 May 2019, 22:27
Pronoun issue:
(A) & (B) has pronounced nd at the end of the underline. Other three do not have a pronoun:

>>> since you have a parallel structure with "...and...", one way you can deduce the structure is to (temporarily) eliminate the other half of that parallel structure.

in other words, since "is more than 2000 years old and..." is not underlined, it doesn't contribute to the structure at all, so you can ignore it. (this is the same way in which you can, for instance, detect pronoun case more easily: for instance, "john and i went to the theater" --> "i went to the theater".)

so, this is all you have to look at:
the army ... took the artisans more than 36 years to complete.
this is sufficient on its own, without a pronoun at the end, in much the same way as this: this test is hard to finish (not "hard to finish it").

**you don't need to repeat "it", since the army is already the subject.
for instance:
I took my bag and went home.
same deal here - "I" is already the subject of both verbs, by default. there's no need to say "...and I went home", a construction that would actually detract from the compactness of the sentence.**

*********************************

Run on: you can not add two independent clause with just a connector. You need comma + a connector.

>>>>(D) introduces a new independent clause (including a subject and verb), which is inappropriate without a comma in front of the "and".

************************
Parallelisms: the two verb doesn't have to be in the same tense.

>>>>>Think about the meaning of the sentence. The author is giving us two "wow" facts about this army of terra-cotta soldiers:
1/ It ___________.
2/ It took 36 years to finish.

What is fact #1? 

Note: If you're reading the original prompt as you should"”focusing on what it's supposed to say, NOT on grammar"”then, by the time you're debating this split, you should already know what #1 is.
**"Is" and "took" are verbs with the same subject, so "is xxxx" and "took yyyy" are perfectly parallel**

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Re: Rivaling the pyramids of Egypt or even the ancient cities of the Maya [#permalink] New post   03 Jun 2019, 08:18
TommyWallach wrote:
Hey Noburu,

Think of the logic. He's not the one who got completed, he's the Japanese guy who built the warriors. It's the warriors that were completed, and they're plural.

-t

TOM, Could you help me by explaining the question with a logical approach, also, I chose C over B due to redundancy of "it". HOWEVER, I truly believe that it is correctly referring to the collective noun army
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Re: Rivaling the pyramids of Egypt or even the ancient cities of the Maya [#permalink] New post   01 Jul 2019, 22:28
Rivaling the pyramids of Egypt or even the ancient cities of the Maya as an achievement, the army of terra-cotta warriors created to protect Qin Shi Huang, China’s first emperor, in his afterlife is more than 2,000 years old and took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete them.

Here as I can see GMAT is testing pronoun error.

A. took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete them

Sub:”the army of terra-cotta warriors” took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete them.

Ok But “the army” is singular, How Them will refer to the army ( them use for plural ) so (WRONG)

B. took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete it

Again It —> I did not get the logic behind it. Sub is the army and it never refer to the army (WRONG)

C. took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete

CORRECT. No issue of pronoun either them or it.

D. 700,000 artisans took more than 36 years to complete

Complete https://gmatclub.com/chat is changing

E. to complete them took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years

To complete them? Them is ambiguous to whom its refer. Army ?

the army of terra-cotta warriors to complete them took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years.

Ha ha I don’t know the meaning of this. So WRONG
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Rivaling the pyramids of Egypt or even the ancient cities of the Maya [#permalink] New post   04 Nov 2019, 19:13
solidcolor wrote:
Rivaling the pyramids of Egypt or even the ancient cities of the Maya as an achievement, the army of terra-cotta warriors created to protect Qin Shi Huang, China’s first emperor, in his afterlife is more than 2,000 years old and took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete them.

A. took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete them
B. took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete it
C. took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete
D. 700,000 artisans took more than 36 years to complete
E. to complete them took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years



I am having a tough time trying to understand the meaning here. the army.......is more than 2000 years old and took 700,00 artisans more than 36 years to complete. But complete what? The army itself?

generis, Sorry for the tag. I waited for a couple of days but got no response from the community. Can you help me with this one?
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Re: Rivaling the pyramids of Egypt or even the ancient cities of the Maya [#permalink] New post   16 Feb 2020, 22:45
solidcolor wrote:
Rivaling the pyramids of Egypt or even the ancient cities of the Maya as an achievement, the army of terra-cotta warriors created to protect Qin Shi Huang, China’s first emperor, in his afterlife is more than 2,000 years old and took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete them.

A. took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete them
B. took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete it
C. took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete
D. 700,000 artisans took more than 36 years to complete
E. to complete them took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years

Edit: This topic is found in earlier versions of OG, such as OG 12. Since then, GMAC has altered this question slightly over the years. The version in OG 2018 is HERE


Can someone please explain the meaning of in his afterlife in the sentence and what it is modifying in the sentence.
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Re: Rivaling the pyramids of Egypt or even the ancient cities of the Maya [#permalink] New post   01 Jul 2020, 04:15
Hi GMATNinja and other experts.
There is a doubt in the verb-ed modifiers. The correct choice when plugged in with the sentence appears as:-
Quote:
Rivaling the pyramids of Egypt or even the ancient cities of the Maya as an achievement, the army of terra-cotta warriors created to protect Qin Shi Huang, China’s first emperor, in his afterlife is more than 2,000 years old and took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete.


After deconstructing the sentence I got confused with the role of "took" . Is it "the army of terra-cotta warriors" that took the artisans more than 36 years?

or is the sentence being said from a third person perspective? Else "took" looks as if modifying "the army of terra cotta warriors" rather and how could "the army of terra cotta warriors" does the action of taking?

There is one more example of OG where the correct choice is as follows:-

Quote:
Combining enormous physical strength with higher intelligence, the Neanderthals appear to have been equipped to face any obstacle the environment could put in their path, but their relatively sudden disappearance during the paleolithic era indicates that an inability to adapt to some environmental change led to their extinction.

Here, the sentence,
Quote:
the Neanderthals appear to have been equipped to face any obstacle the environment could put in their path

sounds as if it has been said by a 3rd person , else how can neanderthals themselves appear?

Please clear this doubt I am stuck with such kind of sentence correction question and I cant decipher the action in the sentence.

Thanks,
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Rivaling the pyramids of Egypt or even the ancient cities of the Maya [#permalink] New post   01 Jul 2020, 05:39
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nkshmalik1 wrote:
After deconstructing the sentence I got confused with the role of "took" . Is it "the army of terra-cotta warriors" that took the artisans more than 36 years?

Yes that's a correct interpretation.

Quote:
or is the sentence being said from a third person perspective? Else "took" looks as if modifying "the army of terra cotta warriors" rather and how could "the army of terra cotta warriors" does the action of taking?

took will always be a verb (and never a modifier). The modifier (past participle) of the verb take is taken (and not took).

So, no element of confusion here :) .

It's a common usage Ankush. For example, following is correct:

The homework took me 5 hours to complete.

Again, took is used as as simple past tense verb. From what I know, this is pretty much the only usage of took.
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Re: Rivaling the pyramids of Egypt or even the ancient cities of the Maya [#permalink] New post   05 Sep 2020, 17:40
Rivaling the pyramids of Egypt or even the ancient cities of the Maya as an achievement, the army of terra-cotta warriors created to protect Qin Shi Huang, China's first emperor, in his afterlife is more than 2,000 years old and took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete them.

A. took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete them
(1) pronoun/antecedent error: “the army [of terra-cotta warriors]” = singular but “them” is plural; moreover, we know “army” is singular with the subsequent/corresponding verb “is,” which is not underlined; (2) unnecessary/redundant pronoun: it’s already clear what took 36 years to complete

B. took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete it
(1) unnecessary/redundant pronoun: it’s already clear what took 36 years to complete

C. took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete
bingo

D. 700,000 artisans took more than 36 years to complete
(1) lack of parallelism: “…the army of terra-cotta warriors…is more than 2000 years old…AND [missing a verb after the parallelism trigger – ‘and’] 700,000 artisans took…”

E. to complete them took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years
(1) lack of parallelism: “…the army of terra-cotta warriors…is more than 2000 years old…AND to complete them…” – “is” is not parallel to “to complete”; (2) pronoun/antecedent error: “the army [of terra-cotta warriors]” = singular but “them” is plural; moreover, we know “army” is singular with the subsequent/corresponding verb “is,” which is not underlined
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Re: Rivaling the pyramids of Egypt or even the ancient cities of the Maya [#permalink] New post   17 Sep 2020, 10:07
Rivaling the pyramids of Egypt or even the ancient cities of the Maya as an achievement, the army of terra-cotta warriors created to protect Qin Shi Huang, China’s first emperor, in his afterlife is more than 2,000 years old and took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete them.

Meaning: army of terra-cotta is more than 2000 y.o. and took 700k artisans more than 36 years to complete

A. took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete them "them" wrongly refers to army of terra-cotta which is a singular noun
B. took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete it "took" has "army of terra-cotta" as its subject already, no need to refer to "it" again
C. took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete Correct
D. 700,000 artisans took more than 36 years to complete lack verb
E. to complete them took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years them wrongly refer to "army of terra-cotta"
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Re: Rivaling the pyramids of Egypt or even the ancient cities of the Maya [#permalink] New post   18 Oct 2020, 15:55
Quote:
Rivaling the pyramids of Egypt or even the ancient cities of the Maya as an achievement, the army of terra-cotta warriors created to protect Qin Shi Huang, China’s first emperor, in his afterlife is more than 2,000 years old and took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete them.

A. took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete them
B. took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete it
C. took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete
D. 700,000 artisans took more than 36 years to complete
E. to complete them took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years

Request Expert Reply:
Hi Experts,
created to protect Qin Shi Huang--> is it essential or non-essential modifier? I'm a bit confused about the classification!
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Re: Rivaling the pyramids of Egypt or even the ancient cities of the Maya [#permalink] New post   08 Dec 2020, 03:03
Rivaling the pyramids of Egypt or even the ancient cities of the Maya as an achievement, the army of terra-cotta warriors created to protect Qin Shi Huang, China’s first emperor, in his afterlife is more than 2,000 years old and took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete them.

A. took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete them-> The army.....took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete. "Them" is incorrect.
B. took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete it->The army.....took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete. "it" is incorrect. Because it refers to singular noun the Army, but we don't need it.
C. took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete-> It is better. Let's keep it.
D. 700,000 artisans took more than 36 years to complete-> Now, subject is 700,000 artisans. Which should be The army.
E. to complete them took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years-> "them" need singular pronoun as subject is singular.

So, I think C. :)
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Re: Rivaling the pyramids of Egypt or even the ancient cities of the Maya [#permalink] New post   05 Jan 2021, 07:14
solidcolor wrote:
Rivaling the pyramids of Egypt or even the ancient cities of the Maya as an achievement, the army of terra-cotta warriors created to protect Qin Shi Huang, China’s first emperor, in his afterlife is more than 2,000 years old and took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete them.

A. took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete them
B. took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete it
C. took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete
D. 700,000 artisans took more than 36 years to complete
E. to complete them took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years

Edit: This topic is found in earlier versions of OG, such as OG 12. Since then, GMAC has altered this question slightly over the years. The version in OG 2018 is HERE



The Question tested both parallelism and pronoun vague:

A. it is wrong, because of vague pronoun (THEM)
B. it is wrong, because of vague pronoun (IT)
c. The right answer "parallel" as below:

the army of terra-cotta warriors created to protect Qin Shi Huang, China’s first emperor, in his afterlife is more than 2,000 years old and took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete

D. Not parallel
E. it is wrong, because of vague pronoun (THEM)
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Re: Rivaling the pyramids of Egypt or even the ancient cities of the Maya [#permalink] New post   29 May 2021, 08:07
Hi GMATNinja / egmat
could please explain the meaning of the sentence?

Sentence Structure
------Rivaling the pyramids of Egypt or even the ancient cities of the Maya as an achievement,
the army of terra-cotta warriors
-----created to protect Qin Shi Huang, China’s first emperor, in his afterlife
is more than 2,000 years old and
took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete them.

As per my understanding
- Army is more than 2000 years old (making sense)
- Army took 700,000 artesian (or is it ? "700,000 artesian took more than 36 year to complete the army) ------- (z)

although option (D) appears to have punctuation error in case of (z) as two ICs are not connected properly (missing ,), but kind of conveying the correct meaning.
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Re: Rivaling the pyramids of Egypt or even the ancient cities of the Maya [#permalink] New post   01 Jun 2021, 11:32
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Green2k1 wrote:
Hi GMATNinja / egmat
could please explain the meaning of the sentence?

Sentence Structure
------Rivaling the pyramids of Egypt or even the ancient cities of the Maya as an achievement,
the army of terra-cotta warriors
-----created to protect Qin Shi Huang, China’s first emperor, in his afterlife
is more than 2,000 years old and
took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete them.

As per my understanding
- Army is more than 2000 years old (making sense)
- Army took 700,000 artesian (or is it ? "700,000 artesian took more than 36 year to complete the army) ------- (z)

although option (D) appears to have punctuation error in case of (z) as two ICs are not connected properly (missing ,), but kind of conveying the correct meaning.



Hello Green2k1,

Thank you for the PM. :-)


You are confused about the usage "the army... took 7000,000 artisans to complete." This expression is correct. We often say that the project took 10 members to finish. The meaning conveyed here is that it took 10 members to finish the project. More simply, 10 members finished the project. So yes, these are all different expressions to convey the same idea. All these expressions are correct.

Yes, Choice D uses a simple more familiar expression, but it has the blatant structural error. Hence, it is incorrect.

Let me know if you need further clarification on this question. :-)


Hope this helps. :-)
Thanks.
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Re: Rivaling the pyramids of Egypt or even the ancient cities of the Maya [#permalink] New post   02 Jul 2021, 11:29
i chose C since it doesn't offer the pronoun isuue of the army completing it others
A has them on it
B has it in it
C feels consice and nice
D subject turns to the artisians rather than the army
E this isn't entirely suitable
hence IMO C
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Re: Rivaling the pyramids of Egypt or even the ancient cities of the Maya [#permalink] New post   03 Oct 2021, 06:09
egmat DmitryFarber

In this sentence, I get that verb is "army" but what I didn't get was why we are using "took"?
As doer of "took" shouldn't be army right? As the army can't complete itself, someone else did. Thus how "took" has "army" as a doer?

If the doer of "took" is not "army" then "took" should be a v-ed modifier.

Please help me understand, what exactly I am missing
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Re: Rivaling the pyramids of Egypt or even the ancient cities of the Maya [#permalink] New post   03 Jul 2022, 08:59
Hi AndrewN,

Could you please help me with a doubt.

In the correct answer choice (C), I found the following structure maddening:
The army took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete.

The meaning comes out strange. Subject "The army" takes the verb "took" here. So, the army took more than 700,000 artisans to complete. Fair enough. But the addition of "more than 36 years" makes it weird. No?

This sounds normal: The project took 10 men to complete. Or, I took more than 3 hours to complete the project.
This doesn't: The project took 10 men more than 3 months to complete.
This should be correct: 10 men took more than 3 months to complete the project.

The construct in (C) as it stands currently looks weird. And (D) looks like a better choice to me, but (D) joins two independent clauses with just a conjunction "and". Also, the object should be placed after "complete" in (D). So, (D) too has issues.

Please, share your thoughts on the matter.
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Re: Rivaling the pyramids of Egypt or even the ancient cities of the Maya [#permalink] New post   03 Jul 2022, 09:30
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MissBong wrote:
Hi AndrewN,

Could you please help me with a doubt.

In the correct answer choice (C), I found the following structure maddening:
The army took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete.

The meaning comes out strange. Subject "The army" takes the verb "took" here. So, the army took more than 700,000 artisans to complete. Fair enough. But the addition of "more than 36 years" makes it weird. No?

This sounds normal: The project took 10 men to complete. Or, I took more than 3 hours to complete the project.
This doesn't: The project took 10 men more than 3 months to complete.
This should be correct: 10 men took more than 3 months to complete the project.

The construct in (C) as it stands currently looks weird. And (D) looks like a better choice to me, but (D) joins two independent clauses with just a conjunction "and". Also, the object should be placed after "complete" in (D). So, (D) too has issues.

Please, share your thoughts on the matter.

I think you are getting bogged down in the details, MissBong, by which I mean the numerical information. Would the following look strange to you?

The project took them a long time to complete.

It looks and sounds fine to me, even though I do not advocate relying on your ear for SC. The sentence above is just a generic version of what we see in answer choice (C): subject-verb-object-modifier (for took)-infinitive. Compare:

1) The project took them a long time to complete.

2) The army took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete.

The second sentence adds a few details, but the same basic grammatical information is on display and is just as functional.

Perhaps the answer choice makes more sense now. Thank you for thinking to ask.

- Andrew
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Re: Rivaling the pyramids of Egypt or even the ancient cities of the Maya [#permalink] New post   03 Jul 2022, 11:15
AndrewN wrote:
MissBong wrote:
Hi AndrewN,

Could you please help me with a doubt.

In the correct answer choice (C), I found the following structure maddening:
The army took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete.

The meaning comes out strange. Subject "The army" takes the verb "took" here. So, the army took more than 700,000 artisans to complete. Fair enough. But the addition of "more than 36 years" makes it weird. No?

This sounds normal: The project took 10 men to complete. Or, I took more than 3 hours to complete the project.
This doesn't: The project took 10 men more than 3 months to complete.
This should be correct: 10 men took more than 3 months to complete the project.

The construct in (C) as it stands currently looks weird. And (D) looks like a better choice to me, but (D) joins two independent clauses with just a conjunction "and". Also, the object should be placed after "complete" in (D). So, (D) too has issues.

Please, share your thoughts on the matter.

I think you are getting bogged down in the details, MissBong, by which I mean the numerical information. Would the following look strange to you?

The project took them a long time to complete.

It looks and sounds fine to me, even though I do not advocate relying on your ear for SC. The sentence above is just a generic version of what we see in answer choice (C): subject-verb-object-modifier (for took)-infinitive. Compare:

1) The project took them a long time to complete.

2) The army took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete.

The second sentence adds a few details, but the same basic grammatical information is on display and is just as functional.

Perhaps the answer choice makes more sense now. Thank you for thinking to ask.

- Andrew

Thank you AndrewN for your response. Could you share on what grounds did you discount (D) except for the lack of "comma" between the two independent clauses?
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Re: Rivaling the pyramids of Egypt or even the ancient cities of the Maya [#permalink] New post   03 Jul 2022, 11:54
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MissBong wrote:
Thank you AndrewN for your response. Could you share on what grounds did you discount (D) except for the lack of "comma" between the two independent clauses?

Hello again, MissBong. I eliminated answer choice (D) because, although it might seem virtually the same as (C), the rearrangement of information fails to deliver on the basic X and Y parallel construct. Consider a barebones version of the latter part of the sentence:

(D) The army is {age} and artisans...

If you want to argue that the clause about artisans is meant to be a separate, independent clause, you would then expect to see another reference to the army, since artisans took {so many} years to complete is not an independent clause. In this sense, the it that we see at the end of (B) is more fitting (although that option messes up in the beginning).

Now, consider the same type of stripped-down sentence to test (C):

(C) The army is {age} and took artisans {so many years} to complete.

The parallel verbs is and took introduce different continuations of the same stem, the army _____, and the clause works either way. When you know how to spot the types of issues that are commonly tested, you can navigate even a long-winded sentence such as this one with confidence. Just stick to the basics.

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Thank you for following up.

- Andrew
GMAT Club Bot
gmatclubot
Re: Rivaling the pyramids of Egypt or even the ancient cities of the Maya [#permalink]
03 Jul 2022, 11:54
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