The Olympic Games helped to keep peace among the pugnacious states of

GMATNinja in option C can you say "they" refers back to the subject of the first clause( The Olympic Games) unambiguously as per one of your live videos? The option is wrong for the other reasons mentioned.

Hi GMATNinja
The sentences which use , + ing modifiers, the modifier should agree with the verb of the preceding clause and not the subject of the preceding clause. Is my understanding correct?

Ref: Why option B is incorrect in this Q

The Olympic Games helped to keep peace among the pugnacious states of the Greek world in that a sacred truce was proclaimed during the festival’s month.

The Olympic Games helped to keep peace among the pugnacious states of the Greek world, proclaiming a sacred truce during the festival’s month

KarishmaB mikemcgarry ExpertsGlobal5

would past perfect be also correct in for clause? Since the truce was proclaimed first, thereby helping to maintain peace. Modified option(D) world, for a sacred truce 'HAD BEEN' proclaimed during the month of the festival.

Thanks in advance!

Are we allowed to use passive formation in GMAT?

Why are we choosing answer choices with passive voices?
Are we allowed to use passive formation in GMAT?

Why are we choosing answer choices with passive voices?
Are we allowed to use passive formation in GMAT?

Let's apply e-GMAT 3 step process to solve this question:

The Olympic Games helped to keep peace among the pugnacious states of the Greek world in that a sacred truce was proclaimed during the festival's month.

A. world in that a sacred truce was proclaimed during the festival's month
B. world, proclaiming a sacred truce during the festival's month
C. world when they proclaimed a sacred truce for the festival month
D. world, for a sacred truce was proclaimed during the month of the festival
E. world by proclamation of a sacred truce that was for the month of the festival


SENTENCE STRUCTURE

• The Olympic Games helped to keep peace among the pugnacious states of the Greek world
o in that a sacred truce was proclaimed during the festival's month.




• This sentence tells us that the Olympic Games helped to keep peace among otherwise fighting states of the Greek World.
o This became possible because a sacred truce was proclaimed during the month of the festival. Note that, the sentence does not tell us who proclaimed this truce.




ERROR ANALYSIS

1. The phrase “festival’s month” is not idiomatic. It gives the meaning that the festival possesses the month. When referring to an inanimate object, we must avoid possessive. This expression should be “the month of the festival”.
2. Here, the expression “in that” means “because”. In this case, ‘because’ is preferred since it is more concise and gives the meaning directly. Note that ‘for’, which is used in the correct option, also means because.
Also as the OG says, this two-word expression can be replaced with a word for conciseness.


PoE

A. Incorrect for the reasons stated above.

B. Incorrect.
1. The phrase “festival’s month” is incorrect as explained in the error analysis.
2. The verb-ing modifier “proclaiming” seems to modify the preceding clause. Now, when a verb-ing modifier modifies the preceding clause, it should make sense with the subject of the preceding clause. So, this option indicates that the Olympic Games did the action of “proclaiming a sacred truce”.
However, if we refer back to the meaning analysis it was not clear from the original sentence who proclaimed the sacred truce. The Games themselves could not have proclaimed anything. So, this option does not indicate a logically correct meaning.


C. Incorrect
1. The reference of the pronoun ‘they’ is ambiguous. It can refer to “the pugnacious states” or “the Olympic Games”.
2. The original sentence indicates that the truce was proclaimed during the month of the festival. This meaning is not conveyed by this option.


D. Correct.
This option corrects the idiom error from the original sentence and replaces the phrase “in that” with “for”, making the sentence concise.


E. Incorrect.
This option is very wordy as compared to option A and D. Also, it suggests that the proclamation of the sacred truce was done by the Olympic Games. This is not the intended meaning of the sentence.



Hope this helps!

Regards,
Deepak

A question from our sentence correction "ask me anything" thread:


The phrase "in that" doesn't appear on the GMAT too often... and now that I'm thinking about it, the phrase doesn't appear very often in modern English in general. So don't lose too much sleep over it, but it's basically a goofy way of saying "because."

And I guess that's fine: "The Olympic Games helped to keep peace among the pugnacious states of the Greek world [because] a sacred truce was proclaimed during the festival's month." I can live with that, I guess.

The bigger issue in (A) is that it doesn't really make sense to say "the festival's month." That's a misuse of the possessive. I can't understand how the festival can possess the month. (teaserbae, I don't think that the issue is that it's "unidiomatic". The problem is that the meaning isn't quite right.)

I hope this helps a bit!

The Olympic Games helped to keep peace among the pugnacious states of the Greek world in that a sacred truce was proclaimed during the festival’s month.

(A) world in that a sacred truce was proclaimed during the festival’s month
(B) world, proclaiming a sacred truce during the festival’s month
(C) world when they proclaimed a sacred truce for the festival month
(D) world, for a sacred truce was proclaimed during the month of the festival
(E) world by proclamation of a sacred truce that was for the month of the festival

Hello,
What if we say ''chair's leg''? Is it wrong? I need a clarification on it.

Hello TheUltimateWinner,

Thank you for the query.


On GMAT SC, this expression will be deemed incorrect I believe because inanimate nouns are generally not written in possessive because "A's B" literally translates as A possesses B.

In general English, such usages are indiscriminately accepted. However, usages in GMAT SC are very very specific, succinct, and logical. Therefore, many phrases that generally "sound" fine are considered incorrect in GMAT SC questions.


Hope this helps.
Thanks.
Shraddha

Hello,
What if we say ''chair's leg''? Is it wrong? I need a clarification on it.

No, 'chair's leg' is not wrong because we are talking about the leg that belongs to the chair. Some grammarians do avoid using possessive with inanimate objects but it certainly has wide acceptability so I wouldn't fret about it.
That said, 'festival's month' is a bigger red flag to me because the month doesn't really belong to the festival. It is just the month in which the festival occurs.
So I would be more comfortable with the month of the festival.
The truce was proclaimed during the month ('of the festival' modifies the month). All makes perfect sense.

Also, 'in that' gives us 'more information' about what is mentioned before. Whereas 'truce was proclaimed during the month' has a cause-effect relation with 'helped keep peace among the states.' Hence, the use of 'because' or 'for' is better.

So (D) is better than (A).