Somber in tone and menacing in content, the leader of the

Question

Somber in tone and menacing in content, the  leader of the terrorists who were holding the hostages sent a message leaving little hope that they would be   released by the end of the week.

A) leader of the terrorists who were holding the hostages sent a message leaving little hope that they would be
B) leader of the terrorists holding the hostages sent a message that left little hope for their being
C) leader of the terrorists holding the hostages sent a message leaving little hope of the hostages being
D) message sent by the leader of the terrorists who were holding the hostages left little hope that the hostages would be
E) message that was sent by the leader of the terrorists who were holding the hostages left little hope for the hostages to be

jpv · Accepted Answer

(D) it is...

 Somber in tone and menacing in content,   the message   sent by the leader of the terrorists   who were holding the hostages   left little hope   that the hostages would be released by the end of the week .

 Somber in tone and menacing in content,  : Appositive Phrase Modifying "The Message"
 sent by the leader of the terrorists : Participle Phrase modifying Message (acting as an Adjective)
 who were holding the hostages : Noun Clause modifying Terrorists
 that the hostages would be released by the end of the week  : that introduces Subordinate Clause.

About Other Choices:
(A), (B) and (C): out:  Somber in tone and menacing in content  should modify  message  not leader.

(E): confusing: message left little hope  for the hostages   to be released .  Not properly Connected.

Vithal · Answer

"Somber in tone and menacing in content" should refer to message and hence A,B,C are out. between D and E, I go with D

dipaksingh · Answer

agree with the mass.

but i do have some confusion

in this part of the sentence,

the leader of the terrorists who were holding

 "of the terrorists" is a prepositional phrase.
and

"who were holding---" is a relative clause.

now, many times i have read in the forum that prepositional phrase can be omited from the sentence without changing the actual structure and meaning.

if this be the case, then the sentence would stand out to be,

"the leader who were holding----" (a subject verb agreement error)

i am little bit confused here,
is it that we can omit prepositional phrase else where but not when the prepositional phrase is followed by a relative clause(as is the case here)

please confirm .

jpv · Answer

U can definitely omit the prepositional phrase but after looking at what all u should omit.

It is clear that "who" refers to "terrorist". Now when u r omiting "of the terrorist", u should omit all words related to it.
here,  of the terrorist who were.... 
Now see the sentence after omitting:
the message sent by the leader .. left little hope that the hostages would be released by the end of the week.

I guess it clears ur doubt...

dipaksingh · Answer

thanks jpv.

a very good point . i now get the concept.

chunjuwu · Answer

D it is. 

"who" is meant to terroists. 
(A)(B)(C) are dangling
Anybody explain what's wrong with E? 

Thanks

ywilfred · Answer

the problem lies with 'to be'. 

the question is really 'whether the hostage will be released'. since the sentence is in the past tense, we use 'would' instead of 'will'.

'to be' somehow changes the meaning of the sentence. I don't know how to put it in words, maybe someone else can.

chunjuwu · Answer

Hello, ywilfred Does "to me" imply any tense here? Any more explicit explanation? :wink:

nocilis · Answer

I narrowed it to D and E as all other choices have a modifier problem.

E is wrong because "little hope for the hostages" implies hope is for the hostages - the original sentence does not imply that.

D it is

rphardu · Answer

Guys,

I don't think that option D is grammatical correct. I accept that there is a slight change in meaning in option E but I read everywhere that Grammar> meaning> conciseness.
Here "message sent by the leader...." has to be a passive construction because if "sent by the leader....." is modifying message using past participle then it should be separated by comma.

In choice E, "that was sent by the leader of the ...." is correct construction because "that" can be used for essential modifier and does not require any comma.

Little brief for our friends, who do not know about essential and non-essential modifier.
Non essential modifier : ".....Clause +comma(,)+which...." : Always represent extra information which we can remove from sentence and sentence will still make sense.
Essential modifier " "...........that ................" : Require as essential information for sentence to make sense.

I believe my doubt is genuine and expert will comment.

shashanksagar · Answer

Between D and E, selected D. E is just wordy.

Sent from my SM-N910H using Tapatalk

pkshankar · Answer

We need to identify what 'Somber in tone and menacing in content' is modifying ? Is this statement modifying the leader or the message. As you might have observed that 'Somber in tone' can modify the leader but 'menacing in content' cannot modify the leader. How can a leader be 'menacing in content' ? Rather a message can be both i.e. 'Somber in tone' and 'menacing in content'.
Hence by understanding this we can clearly eliminate A, B and C.
'D' uses 'would be' and is indeed correct as their is no certainty regarding the release of hostages.

ManjariMishra · Answer

Can somebody please explain why E is incorrect

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unraveled · Answer

ManjariMishra 
Somber in tone and menacing in content, the  leader of the terrorists who were holding the hostages sent a message leaving little hope that they would be  released by the end of the week.

A) leader of the terrorists who were holding the hostages sent a message leaving little hope that they would be
B) leader of the terrorists holding the hostages sent a message that left little hope for their being
C) leader of the terrorists holding the hostages sent a message leaving little hope of the hostages being
D) message sent by the leader of the terrorists who were holding the hostages left little hope that the hostages would be
E) message that was sent by the leader of the terrorists who were holding the hostages left little hope for the hostages to be

Here's my two cents.
Among options A, D and E, I eliminated A since meaning-wise somber and menacing could modify only 'message'. Then between E and D, i marked D which is the correct answer. E, on the other hand, creates meaning disaster in following ways:
- hope was for hostages as if they are to be released.
- if i consider usage of 'for' as 'because' or in a manner 'for a reason' then it suggests hostages are going to be released signifying that there's some surety in that. But are we sure that this is going to happen? No, since there's little hope. Additionally, it is wordier than D.

In either case the meaning is wrong and be sure if meaning dangles like that the option would be wrong.

Hope this is helpful. Let me know if you have question.

adstudy · Answer

Clearly for this question we are stuck between D and E. Now lets compare both options side by side after adding the non-underlined part to them. D) message sent by the leader of the terrorists who were holding the hostages left little hope that the hostages would be released by the end of the week. E) message that was sent by the leader of the terrorists who were holding the hostages left little hope for the hostages to be released by the end of the week. Now observe the non-stricken off part. Observe their meaning. D) message sent by the leader of the terrorists who were holding the hostages left little hope that the hostages would be released by the end of the week. E) message that was sent by the leader of the terrorists who were holding the hostages left little hope for the hostages to be released by the end of the week. D says that 'little hope that', meaning it is describing the hope, what kind of a hope is there. Hope -> Hostages would be released by the end of the week. Seems good. Everyone is hoping for this only. Whereas E says 'little hope for the hostages to be released by the end of the week.' Here it sort of conveys the meaning that there is little hope for the hostages, in general And "to be" is describing 'hostages'. What kind of hostages are we talking about ... Hostages who are to be released by end of the week... Definitely this is definetely not what is intended by the author. Hence, I marked the answer as D. Hope this is was helpful to some extent

PalashJain · Answer

D is the correct answer.

The subject after the comma should be ‘message’ since only a message can be ‘sinister in content’. This eliminates A, B, and C

For connecting a noun+verb construction, we need to use a ‘that’, and not a simple preposition.

E - ‘to be’ is wordy; ‘hope for the hostages’ is incorrect in this context - this makes it look like we are hoping ‘for’ hostages. What the hope should instead refer to is the hope that the hostages (noun) would be released (verb).

ravigupta2912 · Answer

But we are indeed hoping FOR the hostages to be released, right? Is it the fact that when we say "hoping for", we necessarily need to follow it up with a noun or a clause? I am hoping for X. Here it could be 1) I am hoping for a miracle ("a miracle" is a noun entity) and 2) I am hoping for Sarah to get well ("Sarah" is the noun and "to get" is the verb).

Honestly, I eliminated E because it was wordy and conveyed the same meaning without any apparent grammatical error, but i'm still curious on the reason for eliminating E.

IanStewart   AndrewN  - help please

IanStewart · Answer

The question comes down to which of these constructions correctly conveys the intended meaning:

D. The message left little hope that the hostages would be released.
E. The message left little hope for the hostages to be released.

You could justify the answer here purely based on idiom. D is idiomatic; E is not. But there are other reasons E is bad -- it can easily be read to mean something other than what is intended. First, when it says the message "left little hope for the hostages", it suggests the "hope" is purely that of "the hostages". The sentence presumably is talking about the hopes of the world in general, not just of the hostages. And when it says "the hostages to be released", I read that to mean "the hostages who are to be released", in the same way that the sentence "Among the hostages to be released are three Canadian citizens" means "Among the hostages who are to be released...".

So the sentence "The message left little hope for the hostages to be released" can easily be read to mean "the hostages who are going to be released were given little hope by the message", which is almost exactly the opposite of what the sentence is trying to say. Answer D presents none of that ambiguity.

niyatisuri · Answer

Hello GMATNinja , egmat , @VeritasKarishma, Somber in tone and menacing in content, the leader of the terrorists who were holding the hostages sent a message leaving little hope that they would be released by the end of the week. D) message sent by the leader of the terrorists who were holding the hostages left little hope that the hostages would be E) message that was sent by the leader of the terrorists who were holding the hostages left little hope for the hostages to be My Analysis: Since the message was sent to someone other than the hostages, the hope we are talking about is of the recipient and not the hostages. Is the usage of 'to be' in answer choice E incorrect? Please provide feedback on my analysis. Thanks a lot in advance

Regards,

Somber in tone and menacing in content, the leader of the

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Somber in tone and menacing in content, the leader of the

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