The Swedish warship Vasa, sunk in 1628 and raised in 1961, was

Question

The Swedish warship Vasa, sunk in 1628 and raised in 1961,  was preserved in the cold water of Stockholm harbor, where low salinity inhibits  the growth of marine borers that in most seas devour every exposed scrap of a sunken ship's wooden hull.

(A) was preserved in the cold water of Stockholm harbor, where low salinity inhibits
(B) being preserved in the cold water of Stockholm harbor, because the low salinity there is able to inhibit
(C) and preserved in the cold water of Stockholm harbor, the low salinity there inhibits
(D) having been preserved in the cold water of Stockholm harbor, whose low salinity inhibits
(E) had been preserved in the cold water of Stockholm harbor, because of low salinity there inhibiting

mikemcgarry · Accepted Answer

Dear monirjewel , I'm happy to help with this. :-)

In this sentence, we have a subject, "the Swedish warship Vasa", and then a noun-modifier in the form of two participles in parallel, "sunk in 1628 and raised in 1961", but at that point in the sentence, there's no verb. That noun needs a verb. See: The Missing Verb Mistake (A) provides a true verb (C) makes the mistake of sticking in a conjunction, so we have "and" , so this is missing a true verb. Choices (B) & (D) just add on more participial phrases, so in those version, there's no verb in the entire sentence --- the classic form of the "missing verb" mistake. Choice (E) does provide a true verb, but unnecessarily in the past-perfect tense. Also, the change from a true subordinate clause to a prepositional phrase beginning with " because of " make this very wordy and awkward. This can't be correct. That's why only (A) could be the answer. Does all this make sense? Mike :-)

ExpertsGlobal5 · Answer

Dear Friends,

Here is a detailed explanation to this question-

Concepts tested here: Grammatical Construction + Tenses + Idioms + Awkwardness/Redundancy

• Removing extra information between two commas should yield a complete sentence. 
• The simple past tense is used to refer to actions that concluded in the past. 
• The past perfect tense (marked by the use of helping verb "had") is used when a sentence contains two actions in the past; the helping verb "had" is used with the action in the "greater past".

A:   Correct.  This answer choice acts upon the independent subject noun phrase “The Swedish warship Vasa” with the active verb phrase “was preserved” to form a complete thought, leading to a complete sentence. Further, Option A correctly uses the simple past tense verb phrase “was preserved” to refer to an action that concluded in the past. Additionally, Option A is free of any awkwardness or redundancy.

B:  This answer choice fails to form a complete sentence; as "sunk", "raised", and “being preserved” are all modifiers, there is no active verb to act upon the subject “The Swedish warship Vasa”. Further, Option B uses the passive and needlessly wordy phrase “because the low salinity there is able to inhibit”, leading to awkwardness and redundancy.

C:  This answer choice fails to form a complete sentence; as "sunk" and "raised" are modifiers and “preserved” is a part of an article phrase, there is no active verb to act upon the subject “The Swedish warship Vasa”; remember, removing extra information between two commas should yield a complete sentence. In this sentence, the phrase “sunk in 1628 and raised in 1961” between the two commas is extra information about “The Swedish warship Vasa”; hence, removing this information must yield a complete sentence; doing so on this answer choice leads to an incomplete sentence.

D:  This answer choice fails to form a complete sentence; as “having been preserved” is a modifier, there is no active verb to act upon the subject “The Swedish warship Vasa”.

E:  This answer choice incorrectly uses the past perfect tense verb “had been preserved” to refer to an action that concluded in the past; remember, the simple past tense is used to refer to actions that concluded in the past, and the past perfect tense (marked by the use of helping verb "had") is used when a sentence contains two actions in the past; the helping verb "had" is used with the action in the "greater past". Further, Option E uses the passive and needlessly wordy phrase “because of low salinity there inhibiting”, leading to awkwardness and redundancy.

Hence, A is the best answer choice.

To understand the concept of "Simple Tenses" on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~1 minute):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZj-SubJwsM

To understand the concept of "Past Perfect Tense" on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~2 minutes):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFGxC37OOGU

All the best!
Experts' Global Team

anje29 · Answer

Hi Mike,
I think there is typing mistake in your post as option E has verb whereas C doesn't have one.

mikemcgarry · Answer

Dear anje29 , You're correct. I modified my post. Thanks for pointing this out. Mike :-)

Mo2men · Answer

Dear  mikemcgarry

I hope you are well.

I have certain question of the construction "  because of + noun + participle  ". Is this construction  always  wrong? Is there any exception? if yes, have you seen any OG SC question that used it correctly.

I need your help about one of your article about modification with ' with ' and when it is correct or wrong. I remember that I read it once and you nailed the it but I can't locate even with using google.

Thanks in advance

mikemcgarry · Answer

Dear Mo2men , How are you my friend? I'm find and I'm happy to respond. :-)

I wouldn't say that this structure is always wrong, categorically wrong. When it's right and wrong, though, is a tricky issue. You may find this article germane: with + + on GMAT Sentence Correction One way to say this is that the true object of a preposition is a noun. Of course, this noun can be garnished by any noun modifier, but logic of the preposition should be pointing at the noun itself and this logic should remain intact when we remove the noun modifier. Consider this not-very-GMAT-like sentence. The picnic was canceled because of rain coming out of nowhere . With respect to the issue we are treating here, this sentence is 100% correct. It would work if we completely dropped the noun modifier. The picnic was canceled because of rain . The participle modifier provides extra detail, but it is not part of the causation described by the preposition " because of ." The cause described by " because of " is clearly the " rain " itself. Now, another not-very-GMAT-like sentence. Because of the garbage truck screeching, the baby awoke . This is not so hot. Here the preposition is, at it were, trying to reach through the noun to get to the action of the noun modifier. The true cause now is the action, and any prepositional phrase is not the right place to put an action. If we drop the the participle, we lose the true cause to which the preposition was trying to point. This is the mistake form. We have to swap out the prepositional phrase for a true subordinate clause: Because the garbage truck screeched, the baby awoke . A full clause, either independent or subordinate, is the only appropriate place to put the action of a full verb. Now, think about (E) in this context: The Swedish warship Vasa, sunk in 1628 and raised in 1961, had been preserved in the cold water of Stockholm harbor, because of low salinity there inhibiting the growth of marine borers that in most seas devour every exposed scrap of a sunken ship's wooden hull . The reason that this old wooden hull had been preserved is not simply " low salinity ." Instead, it's the fact that " low salinity there inhibits the growth of marine borers ." The action is the real reason, so a prepositional phrase is not the correct grammatical structure for identifying this action as the cause. Off the top of my head, I don't know any official questions that use this structure, but I am sure the GMAT thinks in terms of this distinction. Does all this make sense, my friend? Mike :-)

Mo2men · Answer

Dear  mikemcgarry ,

Thanks a lot for your prompt response and thoroughly explanation as always.

Nunuboy1994 · Answer

IMO the trick with sentences like these- with a ton going on- is to just read them quickly in one motion so as to capture the whole meaning of the sentence. Reading this kind of sentence slowly can cause you not only to fumble words but confuse yourself.

A

shoum27 · Answer

Hi

I picked A based on meaning and sentence structure.
However I just wanted to ask what is the meaning if we use D. Specifically asking...how to interpret  having been ...in the sentence.
I rejected D because  whose  cannot refer to non living objects. is this correct?

mikemcgarry · Answer

Dear shoumodip , I'm happy to respond.

The "having been" + or "having" + constructions are something called a perfect particle , and these have roughly the same role as the past perfect tense of a full verb. When a full verb is correctly in the past perfect tense, it is in this tense to indicate that it is a past action that proceeded another past action. See: Past Perfect on GMAT Sentence Correction Tense issues with participles are tricky. You see, the present participle takes on the tense of the main verb. Discussing the other night's baseball game, Mike is walking into the office right now . = the " discussing " is a present action Discussing the other night's baseball game, Mike is walked into the office yesterday . = the " discussing " is a past action Suppose we want to use the participle to show that the action was previous to the action of the main sentence. For this, we would use the perfect participle. Having discussed other night's baseball game, Mike walked into the office . = the " discussing " is an action that was completed before Mike walked into the office The "having" + construction is active, and the "having been" + construction is passive. Having defeated Napoleon at Waterloo , Wellington lived in high prestige in Britain for the rest of his life. Having been defeated by Wellington at Waterloo, Napoleon was out of options and was exiled to St. Helena. As for the " whose " relative pronoun--certainly this is correct in reference to a particular person. It can also be used for a collective group: . . . the company, whose logo says . . . . . . the Eastern Orthodox Church, whose doctrines say . . . . . . Frances, whose national symbol is . . . English sometimes does use the female pronoun for large vehicles, particularly for boats: this is a classical custom of referring to any large ship as " she ." Theoretically, we could use " whose " for any item to which we were referring as " she ," but this is somewhat quaint and outdated, and a quite unlikely topic for the GMAT. In this question, using " whose " for a harbor doesn't feel right. You are correct. Does all this make sense? Mike

thangvietnam · Answer

look at choice c
noun+noun modifier +main clause 
dose exist in english. in this pattern, noun +noun modifier works ad adverb to modify the main clause. we need to confirm that meaning relation between noun+noun modifier and the main clause is good.

the meaning relation can be cause, effect and context of the main clause. many meaning relations exist but not all relations.

the meaning relation between noun +modifier and the main clause dose not exist in choice c.

lindseym · Answer

Hi:)

Thanks for the replies above, which helped me a lot.
In the meantime, I was wondering why the past-perfect tense isn't the better option than the past tense.
My initial thought was the warship was preserved from 1628 to 1961, which happened over a period, and we usually say [have p.p] tense when indicating things happened over a period. Thus, use [have p.p] for indicating the period, and change [have] to [had] since it happened in past.

Could anyone give an explanation regarding this?

Many thanks in advance

CrackverbalGMAT · Answer

The Swedish warship Vasa, sunk in 1628 and raised in 1961,  was preserved in the cold water of Stockholm harbor, where low salinity inhibits  the growth of marine borers that in most seas devour every exposed scrap of a sunken ship's wooden hull.

(A) was preserved in the cold water of Stockholm harbor, where low salinity inhibits  Correct answer.

(B) being preserved in the cold water of Stockholm harbor, because the low salinity there is able to inhibit  Sentence fragment with no operating verb. Eliminate.

(C) and preserved in the cold water of Stockholm harbor, the low salinity there inhibits  Eliminating the appositive, this sentence reads, "The Swedish warship Vasa...and preserved in the cold water of Stockholm harbor...". There is no verb that the conjunction "and" joins with "preserved". Eliminate.

(D) having been preserved in the cold water of Stockholm harbor, whose low salinity inhibits  Sentence fragment with no operating verb. Eliminate.

(E) had been preserved in the cold water of Stockholm harbor, because of low salinity there inhibiting  "because of" must be followed by a noun and not a clause as here ("low salinity there inhibiting..."). Eliminate.

Hope this helps.

VerbalBot · Answer

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The Swedish warship Vasa, sunk in 1628 and raised in 1961, was

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