The Western world’s love affair with chocolate is well-documented: few

Question

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
(B) few having been known to taste it
(C) it has been tasted by few people
(D) few people have been known to taste it
(E) few people having tasted it

TommyWallach · Accepted Answer

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

dc3828102 · Answer

I think the sentence requires a present perfect tense. So you are left with A and D. In A, the act of tasting is also in present perfect. Thus I think it's  D .

calvinhobbes · Answer

what's wrong with E? Why is "known" critical here?

Thanks.

TommyWallach · Answer

Hey Calvinhobbes,

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
(B) few having been known to taste it
(C) it has been tasted by few people
(D) few people have been known to taste it
(E) few people having tasted it

There are a couple reasons why the "known" is important. First of all, when all else fails, you don't want to change the meaning of the sentence as written in answer choice A, so if you had to choose between a perfectly great answer that resembles A's meaning and a perfectly great answer that doesn't resemble A's meaning, go with the former.

However, there is a better reason here. Notice the use of a colon in this sentence. That means we're looking to exemplify the idea before the colon in the part that comes after the colon. The clause "few people have been known to taste it without requesting more" accomplishes this. But the compound noun "few people having tasted it without requesting more" hasn't yet proven the point. Basically, it's a fragment that doesn't make any sense standing alone. Consider this example:

The threat of prison is great: few men have been known to run from the police.

OR

The threat of prison is great: few men running from the police.

See how the second one doesn't make any sense in its fragmentary form? This sentence is the same, but the fragment is so long it distracts from its overall incomplete-ness. : )

Hope that helps!

-t

noboru · Answer

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.html Hey 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

TommyWallach · Answer

Hey Noburu,

Hmm. How to explain the difference there. I'm not quite sure, though my explanations do match the OAs (I just went looking, to be sure I didn't screw anything up). I imagine it has to do with the preceding verb "have been" in one case and "are" in the other. Few "are known" implies present. And right now, we know about all the people who "have recovered" (Starting in the past, up until now).

In this example, we have "few have been known", so we already implied that present perfect (Starting in the past up until now), so we're safe just saying "to taste".

Cool?

-t

PUNEETSCHDV · Answer

Colons typically are used either TO INTRODUCE A LIST (not the case here) or TO CONNECT TWO INDEPENDENT CLAUSES (as is the case here). An independent clause contains both a subject and a verb and could stand on its own as a complete sentence.

In A, the use of the perfect infinitive (to have tasted) is incorrect and awkward. The correct construction is been known + infinitive:

In B and E, a complete sentence doesn't follow the colon. Eliminate B and E.

In C, the pronoun it is ambiguous: it could refer to the love affair or to chocolate. Also, has been tasted is passive. It's better to say few people have tasted it (active) than to say it has been tasted by few people (passive). Eliminate C.

When you have a choice, avoid the passive voice.

Now we're down to A and D. According to the sentence, what have few people been able to do? They have been unable to taste chocolate for the first time without requesting more. Eliminate A.

The correct answer is D.

VerbalBot · Answer

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The Western world’s love affair with chocolate is well-documented: few

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The Western world’s love affair with chocolate is well-documented: few

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