The military governors and samurai warriors who ruled Japan

Question

The military governors and samurai warriors who ruled Japan were trained  to respect simplicity, be austere, and ritualized code of observed behavior .

(A) to respect simplicity, be austere, and ritualized code of observed behavior 
(B) to respect simplicity, be austere, and observe a ritualized code of behavior 
(C) that they should respect simplicity, be austere, and observe a ritualized code of behavior 
(D) that they should respect simplicity, austerity, and a code of behavior that was ritualized and observed 
(E) in order to respect simplicity, austerity, and a code of behavior that was ritualized and observed

Hi, I want to know how do we know about the main verb and object noun, please.
I put my question in spoiler as it will expose the answer choice.

How can we know that the main verb is "observe" and the object is "a ritualized code of behaviour", please.
For the object " a ritualised code", I presume that we do not change it from the original sentence, and this leaves us "ritualised code of" as one word.

ayushman · Accepted Answer

I believe the main verb in this sentence is “were”. “to respect”, “to be austere” and “to observe” are “infinitives”; and infinitives are not verbs.

Clearly there are a lot of “logically similar” elements here (three to be precise). So, the intent of the sentence is to convey that the military governors and samurai warriors who ruled Japan were trained to do 3 things:
i) respect simplicity
ii) be austere
iii) observe ritualized code of behavior

Hence, these 3 elements should be structurally similar. Let’s look at A. Suppose we “deconstruct” this as: The military governors and samurai warriors who ruled Japan were trained to X,Y, and Z. Then:
i) X=respect simplicity
ii) Y=be austere
iii) Z=ritualized code of observed behavior

The issue is that the “common portion” of the sentence (outside the XYZ structure) makes sense with X and Y, but does not make sense with Z.
i) … were trained to respect simplicity - Correct
ii) … were trained to be austere - Correct
iii) … were trained to ritualized code of observed behavior - Incorrect

However, with B, everything falls in place. The military governors and samurai warriors who ruled Japan were trained to X,Y, and Z. Then:
i) X= respect simplicity
ii) Y= be austere
iii) Z= observe a ritualized code of behavior

The “common portion” of the sentence (outside the XYZ structure) now makes sense with X, Y and Z:
i) … were trained to respect simplicity - Correct
ii) … were trained to be austere - Correct
iii) … were trained to observe a ritualized code of behavior - Correct

This is the simple technique I have learnt from the book I am currently referring to, and seems to work quite well in these kind of questions.

MHIKER · Answer

Respect is main verb. Why will be trained? and to do what? to respect ritualized code of behavior. Ritualized code of behavior is object.

goodyear2013 · Answer

Hi Baten80,
Thank you of that.

How can we know that the main verb is "observe" and the object is "a ritualized code of behaviour", please.
For the object " a ritualised code", I presume that we do not change it from the original sentence, and this leaves us "ritualised code of" as one word.

goodyear2013 · Answer

Hi ayushman,

Thanks for going through this question! 
If you don't mind, can I ask which book you are referring to, please?

mejia401 · Answer

This is a classic problem that tests parallelism. The "to" is distributed among each of the terms so that an infinitive is made.

The verb is not "respect" but "were trained." This is a passive construction, so "military governors and samurai warriors" are the objects. The objects receive the action, or have something done to them, as did the governors and warriors. If you can answer - Is the object in the subject position? Can I add "by someone"? - then it is passive. Thus, there is no subject.

kinjiGC · Answer

The military governors and samurai warriors who ruled Japan were trained  to respect simplicity, be austere, and ritualized code of observed behavior .

the list is
1) to respect simplicity
2) to be austere
3) to observer a ritualized code of behavior

(A) to respect simplicity, be austere, and ritualized code of observed behavior 
(B) to respect simplicity, be austere, and observe a ritualized code of behavior ->  Correct 
(C) that they should respect simplicity, be austere, and observe a ritualized code of behavior 
(D) that they should respect simplicity, austerity, and a code of behavior that was ritualized and observed 
(E) in order to respect simplicity, austerity, and a code of behavior that was ritualized and observed

ayushman · Answer

Sorry looks like I forgot to answer. I am reading "EducationAisle Sentence Correction Nirvana".

You can PM me if you want any more details.

RichaChampion · Answer

The military governors and samurai warriors who ruled Japan were trained to respect simplicity, be austere, and ritualized code of observed behavior.

(A) to respect simplicity, be austere, and ritualized code of observed behavior
(B) to respect simplicity, be austere, and observe a ritualized code of behavior
(C) that they should respect simplicity, be austere, and observe a ritualized code of behavior
(D) that they should respect simplicity, austerity, and a code of behavior that was ritualized and observed
(E) in order to respect simplicity, austerity, and a code of behavior that was ritualized and observed

Mike Mc Garry Sir,

This is GMAT Prep Question Pack 1 SC question.
OA: B

I have no issue in arriving at the correct answer, but I still do not have a grammatical reasoning to understand why C and D are wrong, specially, why the usage of that is wrong here in terms of grammatical reasoning.

I also clearly do not understand the official explanation. https://screencast.com/t/8wkzuWiALkx

Thanks!

mikemcgarry · Answer

Dear crunchboss , I'm happy to respond. :-)

As always, the official questions are of exceptionally high quality, but the official explanations leave a lot to be desired. One thing I'll say is that the clearest way to demonstrate purpose in a variety of context is to use the infinitive of purpose . The OA, (B), uses this quite effectively. It's also quite idiomatic to say, " to train to do X ." That is an extremely naturally phrasing. The verb " to train " very naturally takes an infinitive and doesn't take a " that " close. The tricky thing about (C) & (D) is that they are 100% grammatically correct. It's closer to say that they are idiomatically incorrect. They are awkward in a way that is hard for me to explain. I believe it's just an idiom. The verb " to train " idiomatically takes an infinitive of purpose to show the object of the training, and never takes a " that " clause. It's idiom. I think that's the best explanation I can give. Does this make sense? Mike :-)

deepthit · Answer

respect, be, observe are parallel only in option B

I go with B

BillyZ · Answer

The military governors and samurai warriors who ruled Japan were trained  to respect simplicity, be austere, and ritualized code of observed behavior.

(A) to respect simplicity,  be  austere, and ritualized code of observed behavior 
(B) to respect simplicity,  be  austere, and observe a ritualized code of behavior 
(C) that they should respect simplicity, be austere, and observe a ritualized code of behavior 
(D) that they should respect simplicity, austerity, and a code of behavior that was ritualized and observed 
(E) in order to respect simplicity, austerity, and a code of behavior that was ritualized and observed

GMATNinjaTwo  Why we need "be" before the adjective "austere"?

abhimahna · Answer

This sentence is saying they were trained 
1. to respect simplicity.
2. to be austere.
3. to observe some code.

"be austere" signifies the behavior/nature that they should have.

Consider it like this:

I want to be happy.

I want to happy.

Which one do you think is correct?

So, in a similar way, "they were trained to be austere" has been used.

In short, "they were trained to be austere" means they were trained how to be strict in their attitude.

I hope that makes sense.

daagh · Answer

Apart from the reasons of poor style and flow that Mike has pointed out, C and D are structurally delinquent, in that they are using the suggestive or recommendatory 'should' in a subjunctive mood.

GMATNinjaTwo · Answer

Thanks  daagh  and  abhimahna !

hazelnut , if we eliminate the "be" before "austere" in choice (B), we'll have a parallelism issue: "trained to {verb}, {adjective}, and {verb}". As is, the parallel structure in choice (B) is correct: "trained to {verb}, {verb}, and {verb}".

EducationAisle · Answer

Hi hazelnut, let us  remove  the  be  in option B. So, the sentence would be:

The military governors and samurai warriors who ruled Japan were trained to respect simplicity, austere, and observe a ritualized code of behavior.

Since this sentence obviously uses  parallelism  (the presence of  and  is an indication), we need to figure out  which  parts of a sentence are  logically  similar. A handy technique is the  XYZ deconstruct . Clearly, from the intended meaning of the sentence, you would deconstruct the sentence as:

The military governors and samurai warriors who ruled Japan were trained to X, Y, and Z.

Where:

X: respect simplicity
Y: austere
Z: observe a ritualized code of behavior.

The  common  portion (the portion of the sentence  outside  the XYZ deconstruct) of the sentence is:

The military governors and samurai warriors who ruled Japan were trained to

Rule : After doing the  XYZ deconstruct , the  common  portion should make sense  individually  with X, with Y, and with Z.

Let's see if this is the case:

i) Common portion with X:  The military governors and samurai warriors who ruled Japan were trained to respect simplicity  (makes sense)

ii) Common portion with Y:  The military governors and samurai warriors who ruled Japan were trained to austere  (does  not  make sense; as you can see, the sentence should be:  were trained to  be  austere )

iii) Common portion with Z:  The military governors and samurai warriors who ruled Japan were trained to observe a ritualized code of behavior  (makes sense)

In fact, this simple  XYZ deconstruct  is a very handy tool to analyze most of the parallelism related questions.

p.s. Our book    EducationAisle Sentence Correction Nirvana    discusses  the XYZ deconstruct , its application and examples in significant detail. If someone is interested, PM me your email-id; I can mail the corresponding section.

Rocket7 · Answer

Hello

Can anyone shed some light why E is wrong?

EducationAisle · Answer

Hi  Rocket7 , in my mail above, I have discussed the  XYZ deconstruct .

If you apply that XYZ deconstruct to option E, you can easily figure out why E is not correct.

If something is still not clear, let me know.

p.s. Our book    EducationAisle Sentence Correction Nirvana    discusses  XYZ deconstruct , its application and examples in significant detail. If someone is interested, PM me your email-id; I can mail the corresponding section.

newspapersalesman · Answer

why is choice E incorrect? is it because "in order to" presents a active voice, implying that the governors and warriors trained themselves to respect simplicity.... But they are actually "were trained", so they should not have a purpose.

summerbummer · Answer

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Why not E then?  GMATNinja  can you please help!

The military governors and samurai warriors who ruled Japan

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The military governors and samurai warriors who ruled Japan

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615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

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