Stymieing the Armadas plans to meet up with the Duke of

Question

Stymieing the Armada’s plans to meet up with the Duke of Parma’s army off the coast of Flanders in the Spanish Netherlands, the reason for the defeat of the Spanish Armada was not only due to gale winds that favored the British but also the sacrificing  of eight war ships as “fireships,” vessels filled with pitch, brimstone, gunpowder, and tar and sent downwind toward the closely-anchored Spanish fleet.

A. Stymieing the Armada’s plans to meet up with the Duke of Parma’s army off the coast of Flanders in the Spanish Netherlands, the reason for the defeat of the Spanish Armada was not only due to gale winds that favored the British but also the sacrificing

B. The defeat of the Spanish Armada, which stymied the Armada’s plans to meet up with the Duke of Parma’s army off the coast of Flanders in the Spanish Netherlands, was not only due to gale winds that favored the British but also the sacrificing

C. The defeat of the Spanish Armada, which stymied the Armada’s plans to meet up with the Duke of Parma’s army off the coast of Flanders in the Spanish Netherlands, was not only due to gale winds that favored the British but also due to the sacrificing

D. Stymieing the Armada’s plans to meet up with the Duke of Parma’s army off the coast of Flanders in the Spanish Netherlands, the reason for the defeat of the Spanish Armada was not only gale winds that favored the British but also the sacrifice

E. Stymieing the Armada’s plans to meet up with the Duke of Parma’s army off the coast of Flanders in the Spanish Netherlands, the defeat of the Spanish Armada was due not only to gale winds that favored the British but also to the sacrifice

egmat · Accepted Answer

Hi all,

This is the sentence with choice C:

Choice C: The defeat of the Spanish Armada, which stymied the Armada’s plans to meet up with the Duke of Parma’s army off the coast of Flanders in the Spanish Netherlands, was not only due to gale winds that favored the British but also due to the sacrificing of eight war ships as “fireships,” vessels filled with pitch, brimstone, gunpowder, and tar and sent downwind toward the closely-anchored Spanish fleet.

There is no problem with the modification of “which” in this choice. It does not make sense for “which” to modify the immediate preceding noun “the Spanish Armada”. Also notice that this noun cannot be placed anywhere else in the sentence without violating the meaning of the sentence. So “which” can very well jump over “of the Spanish Armada” and can correctly modify “The defeat”.

The link posted in my above post contains a deatil article on the same topic. It deals with when “which” or any other noun modifier can jump over entities to make logical modification and when it cannot. Solve this question from GMAT Prep for the similar use of the logical modification by a noun modifier:

From studies of the bony house of the brain, which is the cranium, located in the back of the skull, come what scientists know about dinosaur brains.

(A) From studies of the bony house of the brain, which is the cranium, located in the back of the skull, come what scientists know about dinosaur brains.
(B) The knowledge that scientists know about dinosaur brains comes from studies of the bony house of the brain, located in the back of the skull, that is, the cranium.
(C) The knowledge of dinosaur brains that scientists have come from studies of the bony house of the brain, which is located in the back of the skull and is called the cranium.
(D) What scientists know about dinosaur brains comes from studies of the cranium, the bony house of the brain located in the back of the skull.
(E) Located in the back of the skull is the cranium, the bony house of the brain, and it is from studies of this that scientists know what they know about dinosaur brains.

Now let’s get back to this question. The issue with Choice C is the use of “sacrificing” is not correct. We need an entity that must be parallel to “gale winds”, a noun entity. Now “sacrificing” is also a nou in that it is a gerund. However, when a sentence requires the usage of the noun form of a word, we must use the main noun form of the word and not the “ing” noun form. Hence, we need to use “the sacrifice” here instead of “the sacrificing”.

Hope this helps.

Thnaks.
Shraddha

Thnaks. Shraddha

Vercules · Answer

Hi ranjeet75,

C.The defeat of the Spanish Armada, which stymied the Armada’s plans to meet up with the Duke of Parma’s army off the coast of Flanders in the Spanish Netherlands, was not only due to gale winds that favored the British but also due to the sacrificing

The problem with (C) is the incorrect modification by the relative pronoun "which".

"stymied" means to prevent or hinder the progress. The logical meaning of the sentence should be that "the defeat" hindered the progress of Armada's plans (or as the sentence says "stymied the Armada's plans").

The relative clause starting with "which" is incorrectly modifying "the Spanish Armada", logically it should modify "the defeat". Note that "which" modifies the noun closest to it. Another error is the use of "sacrificing"; the word "sacrifice" can act as a noun here, so, we do not need to change it to the -ing form and make it stand as a noun

If we reword (C) as under then it will be correct:

C'.  The Spanish Armada's defeat , which stymied the Armada’s plans to meet up with the Duke of Parma’s army off the coast of Flanders in the Spanish Netherlands, was not only due to gale winds that favored the British but also due to the  sacrifice

In the corrected version above the relative clause starting with "which" is correctly modifying "the defeat". The second correction is in the use of the noun "the sacrifice" in place of gerund "sacrificing"

Hope this helps,

Vercules

ranjeet75 · Answer

_________________________
Why C is wrong?

daagh · Answer

A. Stymieing the Armada’s plans to meet up with the Duke of Parma’s army off the coast of Flanders in the Spanish Netherlands, the reason for the defeat of the Spanish Armada was not only due to gale winds that favored the British but also the sacrificing -- not only due to --- but also--- wrong //ism

B. the defeat of the Spanish Armada, which stymied the Armada’s plans to meet up with the Duke of Parma’s army off the coast of Flanders in the Spanish Netherlands, was not only due to gale winds that favored the British but also the sacrificing --- not only due to but also the sacrificing – wrong //ism

C tha defeat of the Spanish Armada, which stymied the Armada’s plans to meet up with the Duke of Parma’s army off the coast of Flanders in the Spanish Netherlands, was not only due to gale winds that favored the British but also due to the sacrificing ---correlative //ism is ok but, but has relative pronoun touch rule problem

D.Stymieing the Armada’s plans to meet up with the Duke of Parma’s army off the coast of Flanders in the Spanish Netherlands, the reason for the defeat of the Spanish Armada was not only gale winds that favored the British but also the sacrifice ---- modification problem ‘ What stymied was not the reason, but the defeat;

E.Stymieing the Armada’s plans to meet up with the Duke of Parma’s army off the coast of Flanders in the Spanish Netherlands, the defeat of the Spanish Armada was due not only to gale winds that favored the British but also to the sacrifice--- speckless

skamal7 · Answer

can someone clarify me the touch rule, i have seen in few OG questions also that if noun+prepostional phrase,which ---if this format is used then i have seen in few sentences that which jumps and modifies the noun instead of the prepostional phrase which is closest to it .can someone explain this rule with some examples

egmat · Answer

Hi skamal7, You can read the following article to understand when a noun modifier can jump over a prepositional phrase to modify the noun before that phrase: noun-modifiers-can-modify-slightly-far-away-noun-135868.html This thread also contians a few official sentences and their explanation. Hope this helps.

Thanks. Shraddha

russ9 · Answer

I can't seem to get a certain part of parallelism in my head.

For example, in choice A - "  not only due to  gale winds that favored the British but also the  sacrificing  " From what i've been reading - the whole phrase - "not only due to" needs to be in // to sacrificing? Why is that? Why can't it just be "due to gale winds" to "sacrificing" in which case, wouldn't it be parallel? Can't I assume that the "due to" carries over to "sacrificing" and "gale winds"?

In option C - "not only  due to gale winds  that favored the British but also  due to the sacrificing  " = How is this considered //? Due to gale winds(past) vs. due to sacrificing which is an ing -- present?

My issue is always with the "amount of words" I consider to be parallel. If someone could clarify this issue, which is present in a lot of 700 level questions, I will be eternally grateful.

Thanks!

egmat · Answer

https://gmatclub.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/gmat2-banner11-e1373945998281.jpg Hi russ9, The parallel list always contains a marker. Markers are the words that join the entities in the parallel list. The markers can be divided into two categories: a. Single-word Markers and b. Double-word Markers. You can read the following article for more detail on this topic: https://gmatclub.com/forum/markers-in-pa ... 39076.html This sentence also employs a parallelism marker. That marker is "not only... but also...". It is evident that it is a Double-word Marker. And the rule to apply these markers is that they must be followed by "grammatically as well logically identical entities". So basically, not only X but also Y where X must be parallel to Y . Now in Choice A : X = due to gale winds... Y = the sacrificing... These entities are not parallel. We must repeat "due to" after :but also" as well to make both the entities "identical". This is the reason why Choice A is incorrect. Now let's analyze if Choice C is correct on parallelism: X = gale winds... Y = the sacrificing... As I have already mentioned in my previous post, these two entities APPEAR to be parallel because both are Noun Entities, but these entities are NOT parallel. The reason is that "gale winds" is a "proper noun entity" but "the sacrificing" is not a "proper noun entity". It is a verb-ing noun ( a gerund) that actually denotes an action. So an action word CANNOT be parallel to a noun word. So Choice C also fails in parallelism. Now let's analyze the correct answer Choice E for parallelism: X = gale winds... Y = the sacrifice... Here both the entities are "identically parallel entities". They both are perfect noun entities. So, whenever we have a Double-word Marker, we must make sure that they both are followed by he "identical entities". One more thing I would like to talk about is that "the sacrificing" is a noun. A noun does not have tense. Only verbs have tense. Even if "sacrificing" end with "-ing", it does not show any tense. So there is no question of "sacrificing" being in present tense. Hope this helps.

Thanks. Shraddha

mikemcgarry · Answer

Dear JusTLucK04 , I'm happy to respond. :-)

This is hard, because there isn't any universal "rule" for this. The construction of " the sacrifice of " sounds 100% perfectly natural, and " the sacrificing of " sounds unutterably awkward and incorrect. As a very vague rule, I would say --- if the gerund makes the word longer , then there's less of a reason to use it. With many nouns, say " identification ," the noun form is a much longer word than the gerund, " identifying ," so the gerund might make the sentence more concise and direct. This is just a vague general guideline. It very much depends on the individual words --- I have never heard " the sacrificing of" used in a correct English sentence. The deeper answer, though, is you have to read. Read, read, read. That's the only way you will develop this deep sense of what "sounds natural." See: https://magoosh.com/gmat/2012/gmat-reading-list/ Does this make sense? Mike :-)

russ9 · Answer

Hi Mike,

To add to "C" -- isn't "the sacrificing of" considered a complex gerund? Aren't complex gerunds parallel to action nouns, which in this case, is "gale winds"?

Thanks!

mikemcgarry · Answer

Dear Russ9, I'm happy to respond. :-)

Remember that GMAT SC is always operating at a few different levels: grammatical, logical, and rhetorical. What works perfectly fine on one level might not work at all at another level. At the level of grammar, yes, it's 100% true that a complex gerund can be parallel to an action noun. Is " gall winds " an action noun? I would say not. It does not represent an action that anyone performs. It's a thing in the world --- a particularly high-energy thing, but a thing nonetheless. I doubt whether we can call it an action noun. Nevertheless, suppose we had another action noun, " quick decision " or " careful deliberation " or something of that sort. Then, at the level of grammar, it would be 100% correct to put it in parallel with " the sacrificing of ." That was the level of grammar. At the level of rhetoric, the construction "the sacrificing of" is an complete abomination that should be taken out back and shot. It has absolutely no place at all in a correct sentence for any reason under the sun. The GMAT loves to trap people who are stuck at the level of grammatical analysis, who fall into the trap of thinking --- well, if something is grammatically correct, then it must be perfectly fine in every way. It's very important to appreciate that the GMAT SC section is full of 100% grammatically correct answer choices that are absolutely wrong, for logical and/or rhetorical reasons. Does all this make sense? Mike :-)

russ9 · Answer

Thanks for the clarification.

P.S: SC has taken over -- would it make more sense for me to say "Thanks for clarifying" vs. "thanks for the clarification". I would say that it's clarifying since the latter is a fragment.
P.P.S: I'm going nuts.

mikemcgarry · Answer

Dear russ9 , In this context, either " thanks for clarifying " or " thanks for the clarification " is correct --- both sound perfectly natural. Yes, the first is a little more concise, but that's not really a concern for a short sentence fragment. My friend, studying GMAT SC in isolation can drive you crazy. You need to READ. Over and above any GMAT preparations, you need to read at least an hour a day. You need to read hard, challenging material in English. If you want to go to business school, you already should be reading the Wall Street Journal every day and the Economist magazine from cover to cover every week. Here are some more recommendations on what to read: https://magoosh.com/gmat/2012/gmat-reading-list/ None of these rules about grammar & rhetoric really make sense until you are comfortable reading real English about real world events, written by native speakers. That's precisely where you can develop the intuition for what sounds natural. If you try to learn everything about GMAT SC and skip the habit of reading, your understanding will always be more superficial, and to some extent, you will never eliminate the feeling of confusion. I can't emphasize enough how important it is to read. Does all this make sense? Mike :-)

Drmgmat · Answer

Stymieing the Armada’s plans to meet up with the Duke of Parma’s army off the coast of Flanders in the Spanish Netherlands, the reason for the defeat of the Spanish Armada was not only due to gale winds that favored the British but also the sacrificing of eight war ships as “fireships,” vessels filled with pitch, brimstone, gunpowder, and tar and sent downwind toward the closely-anchored Spanish fleet.

A.Stymieing the Armada’s plans to meet up with the Duke of Parma’s army off the coast of Flanders in the Spanish Netherlands, the reason for the defeat of the Spanish Armada was not only due to gale winds that favored the British but also the sacrificing 
 ---> Reason & due to cant come together in much the same way as Reason and Because cant come together

B.The defeat of the Spanish Armada, which stymied the Armada’s plans to meet up with the Duke of Parma’s army off the coast of Flanders in the Spanish Netherlands, was not only due to gale winds that favored the British but also the sacrificing 
  --->Relative Pronoun "Which" incorrectly modifies Spanish armada instead of the defeat.

C.The defeat of the Spanish Armada, which stymied the Armada’s plans to meet up with the Duke of Parma’s army off the coast of Flanders in the Spanish Netherlands, was not only due to gale winds that favored the British but also due to the sacrificing 
 -----> Same issue as in B, Relative Pronoun "Which" incorrectly modifies Spanish armada instead of the defeat.

D.Stymieing the Armada’s plans to meet up with the Duke of Parma’s army off the coast of Flanders in the Spanish Netherlands, the reason for the defeat of the Spanish Armada was not only gale winds that favored the British but also the sacrifice 
 ----> Verb + ing (Stymieing) modifies the 'The reason' instead of "the Defeat"

E.Stymieing the Armada’s plans to meet up with the Duke of Parma’s army off the coast of Flanders in the Spanish Netherlands, the defeat of the Spanish Armada was due not only to gale winds that favored the British but also to the sacrifice
 ----> Correctly choice..

dominicraj · Answer

Hi Mike,

I rejected E just because I saw " the defeat of the Spanish Armada was   due not only to   gale winds".

Can you please guide as to which all phrases can be separated this way though it is uncommon in normal usage.

The other example which I have noticed is " such..XX..as"..

Regards,
Dom.

mikemcgarry · Answer

Dear Dom, I'm happy to respond. :-)

What you ask is an unusual question. First, I can talk about " due to ." The word " due " is an adjective, and it idiomatically takes the preposition " to ." When any word idiomatically takes a preposition or even an infinitive or a "that"-clause, there is nothing sacred and inseparable about that relationship. These words certainly could be interrupted by any correlative parallelism markers ( "not ... but," "both ... and," "either ... or," "not only ... but also," etc .) able not to do X but to do Y prevent the students either from doing X or from doing Y commanded not only that A be J but also that K be T The OA in this questions separates the "due" and the "to" in a similar fashion, and this is perfectly fine. All of the clauses of cause & consequence markers are similar: so . . . that such a . . . that so . . . as to see: https://magoosh.com/gmat/2013/gmat-idiom ... nsequence/ My friend, do you know how you build intuition and familiarity with all these structures? Read. It's the very simple advice that no one wants to hear. The very best way to improve one's "ear" for English grammar is to develop a daily habit of reading. See: https://magoosh.com/gmat/2014/how-to-imp ... bal-score/ Does all this make sense? Mike :-)

souvik101990 · Answer

Stymieing the Armada’s plans to meet up with the Duke of Parma’s army off the coast of Flanders in the Spanish Netherlands, the reason for the defeat of the Spanish Armada was not only due to gale winds that favored the British but also the sacrificing  of eight war ships as “fireships,” vessels filled with pitch, brimstone, gunpowder, and tar and sent downwind toward the closely-anchored Spanish fleet.

A. Stymieing the Armada’s plans to meet up with the Duke of Parma’s army off the coast of Flanders in the Spanish Netherlands, the reason for the defeat of the Spanish Armada was not only due to gale winds that favored the British but also the sacrificing

B. The defeat of the Spanish Armada, which stymied the Armada’s plans to meet up with the Duke of Parma’s army off the coast of Flanders in the Spanish Netherlands, was not only due to gale winds that favored the British but also the sacrificing

C. The defeat of the Spanish Armada, which stymied the Armada’s plans to meet up with the Duke of Parma’s army off the coast of Flanders in the Spanish Netherlands, was not only due to gale winds that favored the British but also due to the sacrificing

D. Stymieing the Armada’s plans to meet up with the Duke of Parma’s army off the coast of Flanders in the Spanish Netherlands, the reason for the defeat of the Spanish Armada was not only gale winds that favored the British but also the sacrifice

E. Stymieing the Armada’s plans to meet up with the Duke of Parma’s army off the coast of Flanders in the Spanish Netherlands, the defeat of the Spanish Armada was due not only to gale winds that favored the British but also to the sacrifice

daagh · Answer

A. Stymieing the Armada’s plans to meet up with the Duke of Parma’s army off the coast of Flanders in the Spanish Netherlands, the reason for the defeat of the Spanish Armada was  not only due to  gale winds that favored the British  but also the  sacrificing ---  unparallel correlative

B. The defeat of the Spanish Armada, which stymied the Armada’s plans to meet up with the Duke of Parma’s army off the coast of Flanders in the Spanish Netherlands, was  not only due to  gale winds that favored the British  but also the  sacrificing ----  same as in A.

C. The defeat of the Spanish Armada, which stymied the Armada’s plans to meet up with the Duke of Parma’s army off the coast of Flanders in the Spanish Netherlands, was not only due to gale winds that favored the British but also due to  the sacrificing  ---  the sacrificing of is unidiomatic

D. Stymieing the Armada’s plans to meet up with the Duke of Parma’s army off the coast of Flanders in the Spanish Netherlands,  the reason for t he defeat of the Spanish Armada was not only gale winds that favored the British but also the sacrifice --- modification problem.  Stymieing the Armada’s plans was not the reason, but was the defeat of the Armada

E. Stymieing the Armada’s plans to meet up with the Duke of Parma’s army off the coast of Flanders in the Spanish Netherlands, the defeat of the Spanish Armada was due not only to gale winds that favored the British but also to the sacrifice ----   correct choice

Nevernevergiveup · Answer

The defeat of Spanish Armada stymied the plans not its reason.

Stymieing the Armada’s plans to meet up with the Duke of Parma’s army off the coast of Flanders in the Spanish Netherlands, the reason for the defeat of the Spanish Armada was not only due to gale winds that favored the British but also the sacrificing  of eight war ships as “fireships,” vessels filled with pitch, brimstone, gunpowder, and tar and sent downwind toward the closely-anchored Spanish fleet.

A.  Stymieing  the Armada’s plans to meet up with the Duke of Parma’s army off the coast of Flanders in the Spanish Netherlands,  the reason  for the defeat of the Spanish Armada was  not only due to gale winds  that favored the British  but also the sacrificing 
 
B. The defeat of the Spanish Armada, which stymied the Armada’s plans to meet up with the Duke of Parma’s army off the coast of Flanders in the Spanish Netherlands, was  not only due to gale winds  that favored the British  but also the sacrificing

C. The defeat of the Spanish Armada, which stymied the Armada’s plans to meet up with the Duke of Parma’s army off the coast of Flanders in the Spanish Netherlands, was not only due to  gale winds  that favored the British but also due to  the sacrificing

D.  Stymieing  the Armada’s plans to meet up with the Duke of Parma’s army off the coast of Flanders in the Spanish Netherlands,  the reason for the defeat  of the Spanish Armada was not only gale winds that favored the British but also the sacrifice........modifier error in A repeats here.

E. Stymieing the Armada’s plans to meet up with the Duke of Parma’s army off the coast of Flanders in the Spanish Netherlands, the defeat of the Spanish Armada was due not only to gale winds that favored the British but also to the sacrifice.............. awkward but nevertheless correct.

Stymieing the Armadas plans to meet up with the Duke of

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Stymieing the Armadas plans to meet up with the Duke of

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