Schliemann determined at the age of seven to find the site

Hi all,

e-gmat team wishes you all a very Happy New Year.

Schliemann determined at the age of seven to find the site of ancient Troy and devoted his subsequent career to do it.

Let me straight away get to the ERROR ANALYSIS as the meaning of this one is not difficult to understand.

1. Both “determined” and “devoted” are the verbs for the subject “Schliemann” and are connected properly. However, the pronoun “it” does not have a proper antecedent. A pronoun must refer to a noun or a pronoun. Here “it” seems to denote to the action suggested by “to find the site…”. This is incorrect.

PoE:

A. devoted his subsequent career to do it: Incorrect for the reason cited above.

B. has devoted his subsequent career to do that: Incorrect.
1. Use of present perfect tense “has” is incorrect as the context is sentence is set in the past.
2. Pronoun “that” does not have any antecedent. Same error as in choice A.

C. devoted his subsequent career to such an end: Incorrect. Use of “such” is not correct here as it fails to refer to the particular task mentioned in the sentence.

D. has devoted his subsequent career for that: Incorrect. Same “that” reference error as in choice B.

E. devoted his subsequent career to that end: Correct. Here “that” is a pronoun that refers to the articular idea complemented by “end”.

Hope this helps.
Thanks.
Shraddha
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Can someone kindly explain the difference between C & E. I can infer that "SUCH or THAT" stands for "To find the site of ancient troy"
I am confused between the use of "Such" & " That" (use of THAT apart from Relative pronoun).
Is "THAT" working as Pro-verb in this case.

Waiting eagerly for response.

Regards,
Fame

Oh surprise !!!! i chose D !!
Why to use word "end" here after relative pronoun ?

i feel "that end" is not complete clause !
can any one comment on this?

But doesn't have much sense if you do not concentrate first of all on the meaning of the sentence

has devoted is wrong because he devoted to reseach on this site BEFORE discovered it is wrong and also not parallel

C seems that he devoted to this end plus others; instead the meaning to this end above all END. In other words, he devoted himself to this supreme end

so E is correct
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Schliemann determined at the age of seven to find the site of ancient Troy and devoted his subsequent career to do it.

A. devoted his subsequent career to do it
"to do it" to do what ??? to do ancient site of Troy ?? illogical.. it has no clear referrent.

B. has devoted his subsequent career to do that
present perfect doesn't make sense
C. devoted his subsequent career to such an end
"to such an end" seems to suggest that author is trying to present an example which is illogical.
D. has devoted his subsequent career for that
has is wrong
E. devoted his subsequent career to that end
Correct. "to that end" here that is referring back to the cause for which Schliemann determined...

I chose correct answer just on POE.

However, I think there is nothing wrong in usage of present perfect "has devoted" in options B and D.

This is totally fine because we dont know whether he has found or not.. May be he is finding right now..
So usage of "has devoted" is not wrong.

The options B and D are wrong for other reasons mentioned by egmat.

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Hello @e-gmat,
Thanks for this nice explanation. Here I have a doubt- in Option-A cant't we consider the "IT" as a place holder?

Hello tamal99.

Thank you for the PM.

Schliemann determined at the age of seven to find the site of ancient Troy and devoted his subsequent career to do it.


The sentence clearly says that Schliemann decided at a very tender age to do something and hence, devoted his career to do so. The sentence clearly states that he devoted his career to find the site pf ancient Troy. This is the reason why it is not a placeholder because there is a definite information that is denoted through the usage of the pronoun it.

Now, this usage is incorrect. But the fact remains that it does refer to some entity in the sentence.

The placeholder pronouns do not refer to any information in the sentence. They simply do the job of holding the place in a sentence.


Hope this helps.
Thanks.
Shraddha
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Thanks a lot for quick response egmat.

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Is "that end", which refers back to Schiemann's determination, a form of idiomatic usage ? Can somebody kindly give a few more examples of such usage?

Schliemann determined at the age of seven to find the site of ancient Troy and devoted his subsequent career to do it.

A. devoted his subsequent career to do it
B. has devoted his subsequent career to do that
C. devoted his subsequent career to such an end
D. has devoted his subsequent career for that
E. devoted his subsequent career to that end

As pointed by egmat :-

"E. devoted his subsequent career to that end: Correct. Here “that” is a pronoun that refers to the articular idea complemented by “end”. "

I beg to differ that in Option E "that" is not a pronoun. A pronoun cannot be followed by a noun and a pronoun can only refer to noun or another pronoun. "that" cannot refer to "to find the site of ancient Troy". The same is true for "it" which results in Option A being wrong.

In my opinion "that" is an article which is used to specify that Schliemann devoted his life to a particular end,i.e., to find the site of ancient Troy. This reason also explains why Option C is wrong as "such" will mean "similar to but not the same particular" which will distort the meaning.

Hi GMATNinja carcass generis daagh

Please help confirm if above explanation is correct.

Also, a humble request. I gave GMAT two days back and could only score 690(v35 q49). I have exhausted official material. Need to improve equally in all sections of verbal. Kindly suggest sources.

Thanks!

KeepMovingForward
"That" is never an article. In this case, it's a relative pronoun, and the usage we see here is quite standard. "That" or "those" can be used to refer back to a previous noun, but at the same time it can also introduce a new noun or modifier that adds specificity:

The night I went to see The Fritz was the first time I had heard of that excellent band.

Here, "that" refers back to "The Fritz," while "excellent band" is a new noun phrase that says more about what "The Fritz" is.

We can also follow "that" with a modifier:

The approach she used was that of a confident front-runner.

Here, "that" refers back to "approach," while the modifier "of a confident front-runner" finally tells us what the approach was. Again, either of these usages is quite common. On the GMAT, we may often get in trouble by reading over a "that" or "those." Those two words can carry a lot of meaning!
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DmitryFarber

Sorry but i beg to differ again.

You mentioned "that" is never an article. But please have a look on below link :-

https://gmatclub.com/forum/experts-topi ... 43686.html

The second use of “that” really isn’t all that interesting, and it rarely causes any trouble on the GMAT: “that” can just be an article that precedes a noun. A couple of examples:

Charlie is obsessed with Neerob, a Bengali eatery in the Bronx, because that restaurant’s shrimp dopeaja is consistently amazing.

P.S. - I have exhausted official material. Need to improve equally in all sections of verbal. Kindly suggest sources.

Thanks!

I'm afraid my colleague is simply incorrect there. If you look through the listing for "that" in a reputable dictionary, I don't think you'll find any mention of "that" as an article. In the cases provided in your link, "that" is still a relative pronoun, used in exactly the way I discussed above. If anyone can find an official grammar source that says otherwise, I will gladly adjust my approach.
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