The child was frightened by the grifter, who had a number of unsettlin

Question

The child  was frightened by the grifter, who had a number of unsettling mannerisms, and the clown, and was worrying  ever since that the two will reappear.

A. was frightened by the grifter, who had a number of unsettling mannerisms, and the clown, and was worrying
B. was frightened by the clown and the grifter, who had a number of unsettling mannerisms, and worried
C. had been frightened by the grifter, who had a number of unsettling mannerisms, and by the clown, and has been worrying
D. has been frightened by the clown and the by grifter, who had a number of unsettling mannerisms, and worried
E. was frightened by the clown and the grifter, who had a number of unsettling mannerisms, and has been worried

nailin16 · Answer

C out - past perfect construction 
D out as its a useless passive construction..half of the sentence is in passive voice ..the other half in active voice..D a big NO
So we have A B and E
A the child was froghtened ...and was worrying...violation of parallelism rule

B and E are similar except the present perfect construction in the second part of the sentence..
If we go by the meaning present perfect makes more sense and since is used in the second part..
We generally use present perfect with since and within..
So E

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sobby · Answer

We need present perfect in the 2nd part of sentence ....
C and E is the only choice ..But past perfect is not correct in C ..So E...

daagh · Answer

My doubts:

1. It is clear that the clown and the grifter are two separate entities. But E seems to say that both are one and the same since the choice is not using the preposition 'by' for the second factor namely 'the grifter'.

If the modifier ---who had a number of unsettling mannerisms--- refers to the grifter alone, the normal expression here would be: "was frightened by the grifter, who had a number of unsettling mannerisms, and by the clown and has been worried.

I think that E has a word - order problem.

umg · Answer

D also has Present Perfect. Frightened and Worried are parallel to each other.

D.  has been frightened   by the clown and the by grifter, who had a number of unsettling mannerisms,   and worried...

A. was frightened by the grifter, who had a number of unsettling mannerisms, and the clown, and  was  worrying  We need Present Perfect here

B.  was   frightened  by the clown and the grifter, who had a number of unsettling mannerisms, and  worried   frightened & worried are parallel to each other implying a construction similar to option A.

C.  had  been frightened by the grifter, who had a number of unsettling mannerisms, and by the clown, and has been worrying  We need another event in the past to use Past Perfect.

D.  has  been frightened by the clown and  the by  grifter, who had a number of unsettling mannerisms, and worried  If we ignore the change in order of words   the by    the word   has   changes the meaning. <Frightened> was an event in the past and hence we should use past tense for it.

E.  was frightened by the clown and the grifter, who had a number of unsettling mannerisms, and has been worried

Though I also have an issue with this construction.

The child was frightened by  the clown  and  the grifter ,  who had a number of unsettling mannerisms ...

In this sentence, Relative Clause starting with  Who  seems to modify both  The Clown  and  The Grifter .

BillyZ · Answer

OFFICIAL EXPLANATION 
This question has a fair amount going on, but really it's all about  tense .

The timeline of the child's "worrying" in the initial version (A) is self-contradictory. "Was worrying" is past continuous, suggesting an action that had a duration but that is no longer ongoing in the present. But "ever since" suggests the opposite -- that the child continues to worry. Since this timeline makes no sense, we can eliminate A.
B cleans up some arguable style issues from A, but ultimately B does nothing to correct the contradictory tense issue associated with "the child was... worried ever since" (this might also be read as "the child... worried ever since," but the same issue would remain).

C repairs the end of the sentence by using the present perfect continuous "has been worrying" to describe a process ongoing from the past into the present. However, C adds the past perfect "had been frightened" at the beginning, which wrecks this aspect of the timeline. The past perfect describes a past tense event that occurred before another past tense event in the sentence, but the only other past tense event here is "had a number of unsettling mannerisms," and this presumably was true at the time when the grifter and the clown frightened the child (note that "had a number of unsettling mannerisms" is simple past, not past perfect; the "had" in this context is a verb meaning "possessed," rather than a perfect tense helping verb).

D attempts to solve the "worried ever since" problem by adding the present perfect helping verb "has" at the beginning of the sentence. This does, in fact, allow the latter part of the sentence to pick up the helping "has" and make sense. However, the unintended consequence is that the child's initially being frightened is also ongoing into the present. This is illogical especially given that the unsettling mannerisms are expressed in the simple past ("had") and given that the phrase "ever since" implies a definite point strictly in the past at which the child's worry began.

E corrects the tense issue at the end of the sentence by providing the present perfect "has been worried." In the process, it correctly retains the simple past tenses elsewhere in the sentence. Therefore E is the correct answer.

Some students may get hung up on the logic of locating the relative clause "who had a number of unsettling mannerisms." Does it refer to the grifter alone or to both the grifter and the clown? Does its meaning change when the clown is moved around the sentence in answers B, D, and E? Is it even unambiguous when placed after the compound phrase "the clown and the grifter"?

In A and C, only the grifter had unsettling mannerisms. Ultimately, answers B, D, and E change the meaning to state that both the clown and the grifter had unsettling mannerisms. When a pronoun ("who") follows a list, the pronoun will unambiguously refer to the entire preceding list if possible. This does, of course, change the meaning of the sentence, but that isn't problematic. The only rule of meaning that matters to the GMAT is whether the meaning in question is logical, not whether the meaning is the same as it was in the original sentence. And it isn't illogical for either the clown, the grifter, or both to have unsettling mannerisms.

Since every answer choice is both logical and unambiguous with regard to the owner of the unsettling mannerisms, this was a false decision point designed to distract from the fundamental tense issues that only E was able to fully solve.

daagh · Answer

The OA is debatable. The unsettling mannerism is the characteristic of the grifter as per the original but choice E says that it is the characteristic of both the grifter and clown. Clowns are more of jesters with pranks rather than confidence tricksters. I think it is more sensible to think the original text way rather than as in E. Of course, the tense form is better in E with the use the present perfect to tally with its marker ' ever since'.

grimm1111 · Answer

"The child was frightened by the clown and the grifter, who had a number of unsettling mannerisms, and has been worried ever since that the two will reappear."

I think the author is trying to use an elliptical construction, omitting the second "by" in...

"The child was frightened by the clown and    by   t he grifter, who had a number of unsettling mannerisms, and has been worried ever since that the two will reappear."

daagh · Answer

The point is who or what does the phrase ' who had unsettling mesmerisms' modify. If it is only modifying the grifter, then the correct way is the original way where the grifter is mentioned first along with its modifier, but the clown is simply stated barely. E is faulting on that .
An OG example of this point can be seen in the following topic
https://gmatclub.com/forum/published-in ... 49209.html

grimm1111 · Answer

"The child was frightened by the clown and by the grifter, who had a number of unsettling mannerisms, and has been worried ever since that the two will reappear."

This sentence is correct because the relative clause  "who had a number of unsettling mannerisms"  modifies the noun immediately preceding the comma.

I agree with you that answer choice E, as written, is confusing because one could view the "clown and grifter" as a compound object. Ellipses should really only be used conservatively and when they don't cause confusion.

Just my opinion. I'm not claiming to be Ernest Hemingway.

Rollroll · Answer

ever since that the two will re appear - indicate use of present perfect tense . therefore has been in E is rightly used 
ans E

riyu44 · Answer

ever since in non under line par refers use of present perfect in underline part which is only present in option E.

However "clown and the grifter, who had a number of unsettling mannerisms " in E differs what actually given in sentence.

VerbalBot · Answer

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The child was frightened by the grifter, who had a number of unsettlin

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The child was frightened by the grifter, who had a number of unsettlin

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