TommyWallach wrote:
Hey All,
This one's got some interesting verb/adjective stuff going on, and no one has yet explained it perfectly, so I thought I'd weigh in.
The Western world’s love affair with chocolate is well-documented: few people have been known to have tasted it for the first time without requesting more.
(A) few people have been known to have tasted it
PROBLEM: "have been known to have tasted it" repeats the present perfect form instead of using the infinitive, which is what we want here. After "have been known", we just want the infinitive form ("to taste"). It would be like saying "I like to have run" instead of "I like to run".
(B) few having been known to taste it
PROBLEM: "having been known" is a participle (Adjective) not a verb. While we don't technically need an independent clause after a colon, answer choice A makes it clear we do want it here. We also can't work without "people".
(C) it has been tasted by few people
PROBLEM: Unclear now who is "requesting more", because "it" feels like the subject, not "people".
(D) few people have been known to taste it
ANSWER
(E) few people having tasted it
PROBLEM: Same as B (participle, not verb), except now we've lost out the "known", which we really need.
Hope that helps!
-tommy
Tommy, I have problems with the "known" constructions.
In this other post I understood that the correct idiom is always "known to have".
Could you clarify this point?
Once again, thank you very much.
Here is the link, and below your post. I am referring when you explain why A is wrong.
sc-fear-of-rabies-1408-20.htmlHey All,
I got Private Messaged to answer this question, and indeed, the discussion has been long and fruitful! What fun!
The fear of rabies is well founded; few people are known to recover from the disease after the appearance of the clinical symptoms.
(A)few people are known to recover from the disease after the appearance of the clinical symptoms.
PROBLEM: This question is a classic concision trap. The hope is that you'll pick A, thinking that A and B are the same and this one is shorter. But this is not idiomatic. We say "SUBJECT is known TO HAVE RECOVERED" not "SUBJECT is known TO RECOVER." We wouldn't say he is "known to eat twenty apples". The present tense infinitive (to eat) is wrong. Correct is that "I am known to have eaten 20 apples", which correctly uses the present perfect to imply this is what we've known from the past into the present.
Also, "after" and "once" have slightly different meanings. "I'm going to the store after lunch" implies that SOMETIME after lunch, I'll go to the store. "I'm going to the store once I've eaten lunch" implies that there is a causal relationship between the eating and the going to the store, that eating lunch is the threshold. That's what we want here, because the symptoms are the threshold.
(B)few people are known to have recovered from the disease once the clinical symptoms have appeared
ANSWER: Awesome.
(C)there are few known people who have recovered from the disease once the clinical symptoms have appeared
PROBLEM: Adjective "known" is now modifying "people", which is silly.
(D)after the clinical symptoms appear,there are few known people who have recovered from the disease
PROBLEM: Same as above, and the placement of the prep phrase "after..." is odd.
(E)recovery from the disease is known for only a few people after the clinical symptoms appear
PROBLEM: "Known for only a few people" doesn't make any sense. It's not that the recovery isn't known, but that few people are known to have recovered.
Hope that helps! The answer is definitely B.
-t