Quote:
Three of the most encouraging ideas to extend the life of satellites includes restoring power via a mission extension vehicle, refueling via a type of traveling service station, and to detach working parts from old satellites to attach them to new ones.
A) includes restoring power via a mission extension vehicle, refueling via a type of traveling service station, and to detach working parts from old satellites to attach them to new ones.
B) include restoring power via a mission extension vehicle, refueling via a type of traveling service station, and detaching working parts from old satellites to attach them to new ones.
C) are to restore power via a mission extension vehicle, refueling via a type of traveling service station, and by detaching working parts from old satellites to attach them to new ones.
D) includes restoring power via a mission extension vehicle, refueling via a type of traveling service station, and detaching working parts from old satellites to attach them to new ones.
E) include restoring power via a mission extension vehicle, using a traveling service station that refuels them, and detaching working parts to attach them to new satellites from old ones
zhanbo wrote:
Quote:
Finally, compare (B) and (E).
For (B), at first, I do not like the them in attach them: detaching working parts from old satellites to attach them to new ones.
It does not feel right.
Better: detaching working parts from old satellites to be reused in new ones.
I wonder if others feel the same.
It turns out (E) uses the similar construct: detaching working parts to attach them to new satellites from old ones
It is actually worse.
But I eliminate (E) based on "using a traveling service station that refuels them". It introduces a subordinate clause.
In this list, the first item is "restoring power via a mission extension vehicle". There is no use of subordinate clause.
In (B), "refueling via a type of traveling service station" is more consistent with "restoring power via a mission extension vehicle".
callmeDP wrote:
Quote:
zhanbo, I totally agree with you, The third idea, "detaching working parts to attach them to new satellites from old ones."
I think we can eliminate them can it should be fine.
let's see what
generis has to say about it
Well, what
generis has to say about these issues was Swype-typed hours ago on a phone in a parking lot into which I pulled my car after I glanced at my phone at a stoplight. That scrolling-on-a-phone business is for the birds. (Vernacular. Google it.)
• THE PRONOUN THEMIs the pronoun usage logical? Watch the action words, adjectives, and prepositional phrases that are connected to the pronouns.Option B: . . .
→
detaching working parts →
from old satellites →
[in order] to attach them →
to new onesStylistic parallelism may help you to see logical connections between the nouns and pronouns at issue.
What gets detached? And from what?
What gets attached? And to what?
The sentence concerns methods by which to extend the life of a machine.
The words “detached” and “attached” are logically connected.
It is logical to assume that whatever got detached in this preemptive fix also gets attached, especially because the small parts were “detached”
from certain large OLD things and subsequently “attached”
to – what? To “NEW ones.”
(In other words, if new satellites break, people should use working parts from old satellites to repair the new satellites. Repurposed parts save time and money that would be spent making them. From that fact we could easily construct an argument that the repurposed parts “extend the life” of satellites.)
After we examine function words (detaching and [in order] to attach), adjectives (old and new), and prepositional adjective phrases (which begin with
from and
to), we should notice that the two different plural pronouns (
them and
ones) are logically distinguished by the words that surround or are attached to those pronouns.
→ The word
them is connected to
attachment and thus logically also to the parallel action of
detachment.
We know exactly what is detached. Those same things are the logical candidates for what is subsequently attached elsewhere.
→ The word
ones is qualified by a size word, the adjective
new. That adjective, in turn, is parallel to
old.
We know exactly what is
old. The satellites were not detached from themselves. That sentence is nonsensical.
To what, then, must the word
them refer?
Regarding option E, let’s take a look at the last phrase:
. . . and detaching working parts to attach them to new satellites from old ones.
Examine the placement of the modifier
from old ones.First, with respect to pronoun ambiguity (which is actually pretty rare on the GMAT), decide what you think
ones refers to.
Then decide what this prepositional adjective phrase should modify (after having replaced
ones with the most likely noun candidate.
→ When in doubt, replace the pronoun with what you think is the correct noun.
Does the replacement make sense? If so, the pronoun usage is probably logical.
→ Now replace the pronoun with the other noun. The replacement should not make sense.
• USING = ACTION NOUN a.k.a. gerund a.k.a verbING Subordinate clause vs. gerund (verbING)?I am utterly lost with respect to the claim that the phrase “using XYZ” introduces a subordinate clause into a list.
Since when did the noun “using” automatically create a subordinate clause? And why does the word do so?
Is some weird rule being taught that I have never seen? Is this rule floating around and merrily mucking up approaches to SC?
Consider this sentence:
Good hand hygiene consists of washing with soap and warm water, using 70 percent ethanol-based sanitizer when a sink is not available, and wearing disposable gloves when disinfecting surfaces that have been contaminated by pathogens.→ washing, using, wearing
Food for thought.
I hope that analysis helps.
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