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aaba
The early Greeks designed a mud-brick temple that mirrored those of the Mesopotamians and therefore may have studied the works of other cultures, an advantage that might explain why they eventually adopted more advanced masonry techniques.

A The early Greeks designed a mud-brick temple that mirrored those of the Mesopotamians

B The early Greeks designed a mud-brick temple mirroring a Mesopotamian one

C The mud-brick temples of the early Greeks mirrored a Mesopotamian design

D The early Greeks' mud-brick temples mirrored the Mesopotamians'

E The mud-brick temples of the early Greeks mirrored those of the Mesopotamians

OA is B

prep-scholar


I can hardly understand why option B is better than option A. Could anybody explain me, please?

Thank you very much
Hello my friend.

To answer you in precise manner.
Comparison is usually done within singular entities or within plural entities. Comparing one with all is not a right way of comparison. Your doubt is entirely justifiable. But in GMAT SC we are to choose the best amongst the following. B is a much better and clearer form of A, which compares similar entities. If there wouldn't have been answer choice B , A would be the best choice.

Sent from my XT1562 using GMAT Club Forum mobile app
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aaba
The early Greeks designed a mud-brick temple that mirrored those of the Mesopotamians and therefore may have studied the works of other cultures, an advantage that might explain why they eventually adopted more advanced masonry techniques.

A The early Greeks designed a mud-brick temple that mirrored those of the Mesopotamians

B The early Greeks designed a mud-brick temple mirroring a Mesopotamian one

C The mud-brick temples of the early Greeks mirrored a Mesopotamian design

D The early Greeks' mud-brick temples mirrored the Mesopotamians'

E The mud-brick temples of the early Greeks mirrored those of the Mesopotamians

OA is B

prep-scholar


I can hardly understand why option B is better than option A. Could anybody explain me, please?

Thank you very much

Same query
Find A better to B

Posted from my mobile device

Posted from my mobile device
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aaba
The early Greeks designed a mud-brick temple that mirrored those of the Mesopotamians and therefore may have studied the works of other cultures, an advantage that might explain why they eventually adopted more advanced masonry techniques.

A The early Greeks designed a mud-brick temple that mirrored those of the Mesopotamians

B The early Greeks designed a mud-brick temple mirroring a Mesopotamian one

C The mud-brick temples of the early Greeks mirrored a Mesopotamian design

D The early Greeks' mud-brick temples mirrored the Mesopotamians'

E The mud-brick temples of the early Greeks mirrored those of the Mesopotamians


prep-scholar


Close choice between A and B, but B wins as it is more precise. ING modifier "mirroring" is better than relative pronoun "that".
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Answer (B)

Problem with A is there is no clear antecedent for "those".
Had option A read as, The early Greeks designed a mud-brick temple that mirrored temples of the Mesopotamians and therefore may have studied the works of other cultures, an advantage that might explain why they eventually adopted more advanced masonry techniques, it would have been the best
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aaba
The early Greeks designed a mud-brick temple that mirrored those of the Mesopotamians and therefore may have studied the works of other cultures, an advantage that might explain why they eventually adopted more advanced masonry techniques.

A The early Greeks designed a mud-brick temple that mirrored those of the Mesopotamians

B The early Greeks designed a mud-brick temple mirroring a Mesopotamian one

C The mud-brick temples of the early Greeks mirrored a Mesopotamian design

D The early Greeks' mud-brick temples mirrored the Mesopotamians'

E The mud-brick temples of the early Greeks mirrored those of the Mesopotamians


prep-scholar

C is incorrect, the temple is supposed to mirror a Mesopotamian Temple, not a Mesopotamian Design. There is a parallelism break in A, a singular nouns is being compared to a plural one. D changes the meaning, the sentence is supposed to say that the early Greeks designed a temple that mirrored the Mesopotamian temple, not just that they had one. Same issue with E, B is the right option.
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Option A uses “those” to compare with Temple - singular.
Option C & E make it sound like the mud bricks studied the works of other cultures, when in fact it was the Greeks who studied.
Option D - Greeks’ and Mesopotamians’ - just sounds awful and does completely drops the noun being compared - what are we comparing here?

The point is to choose the best possible answer among the 5 and it does not have to be 100% correct or be in agreement with all rules of grammar.
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aaba
The early Greeks designed a mud-brick temple that mirrored those of the Mesopotamians and therefore may have studied the works of other cultures, an advantage that might explain why they eventually adopted more advanced masonry techniques.

A The early Greeks designed a mud-brick temple that mirrored those of the Mesopotamians

B The early Greeks designed a mud-brick temple mirroring a Mesopotamian one

C The mud-brick temples of the early Greeks mirrored a Mesopotamian design

D The early Greeks' mud-brick temples mirrored the Mesopotamians'

E The mud-brick temples of the early Greeks mirrored those of the Mesopotamians


prep-scholar

The key to answer this question lies in the non underlined portion of the sentence. The subject of the non-underlined portion of the sentence is ''the early greeks'' which has been omitted as per ellipsis rule. If the subject of the non-underlined portion is early greeks, then it naturally the subject of the preceding clause should also be ''early greeks'' thus eliminating options C,D,and E. Option A has a problem of wrong usage of demonstrative pronoun ''those'' , usage of ''that'' would have been correct. Thus only option left is Option B.
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VIGHNESHKAMATH
The key to answer this question lies in the non underlined portion of the sentence. The subject of the non-underlined portion of the sentence is ''the early greeks'' which has been omitted as per ellipsis rule. If the subject of the non-underlined portion is early greeks, then it naturally the subject of the preceding clause should also be ''early greeks'' thus eliminating options C,D,and E. Option A has a problem of wrong usage of demonstrative pronoun ''those'' , usage of ''that'' would have been correct. Thus only option left is Option B.
Nice explanation but there's a small error in this analysis. The issue with "those" in (A) is not of an usage of a demonstrative pronoun. The main issue is that "those" is a plural pronoun, and there is no plural noun in (A) that "those" could refer to.
Hope it helps.
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VIGHNESHKAMATH
aaba
The early Greeks designed a mud-brick temple that mirrored those of the Mesopotamians and therefore may have studied the works of other cultures, an advantage that might explain why they eventually adopted more advanced masonry techniques.

A The early Greeks designed a mud-brick temple that mirrored those of the Mesopotamians

B The early Greeks designed a mud-brick temple mirroring a Mesopotamian one

C The mud-brick temples of the early Greeks mirrored a Mesopotamian design

D The early Greeks' mud-brick temples mirrored the Mesopotamians'

E The mud-brick temples of the early Greeks mirrored those of the Mesopotamians


prep-scholar

The key to answer this question lies in the non underlined portion of the sentence. The subject of the non-underlined portion of the sentence is ''the early greeks'' which has been omitted as per ellipsis rule. If the subject of the non-underlined portion is early greeks, then it naturally the subject of the preceding clause should also be ''early greeks'' thus eliminating options C,D,and E. Option A has a problem of wrong usage of demonstrative pronoun ''those'' , usage of ''that'' would have been correct. Thus only option left is Option B.

Hello VIGHNESHKAMATH,

We hope this finds you well.

To provide a bit of correction here, the pronoun error in Option is actually that there is no suitable plural referent for "those"; the usage of the demonstrative pronoun "that" would also be incorrect, as it would illogically imply that the Mesopotamians had only one temple.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
Experts' Global Team.
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