Once thought to be impossible, Alex Honnold successfully free soloed

Question

Once thought to be impossible, Alex Honnold successfully “free soloed” Yosemite’s El Capitan in 2017, climbing the 3,000-foot wall without the aid of any ropes in just under four hours.

A. Once thought to be impossible, Alex Honnold successfully “free soloed” Yosemite’s El Capitan in 2017, climbing the 3,000-foot wall without the aid of any ropes in just under four hours.
 
B. Once thought impossible, El Capitan was “free soloed” for the first time in 2017 by Alex Honnold, who climbed the 3,000-foot wall in just under four hours without the aid of any ropes.
 
C. Alex Honnold “free soloed” Yosemite’s El Capitan in 2017, climbing the 3,000-foot wall without the aid of ropes in just under four hours and becoming the first person to achieve a feat that was once thought to be impossible.
 
D. In 2017, Alex Honnold became the first person to “free solo”—climb without the aid of any ropes—Yosemite’s 3,000-foot El Capitan in just under four hours, a feat that was once thought to be impossible.

E. In 2017, Alex Honnold became the first person to “free solo” Yosemite’s El Capitan—a feat once thought impossible—climbing the 3,000-foot wall without the aid of any ropes in just under four hours.

VeritasPrepBrian · Accepted Answer

Here's how I'd look at it:

1) The information separated by dashes ("a feat once thought impossible") is definitely a modifier.

2) If it were a normal appositive modifier ("Honnold free-soloed El Capitan, California's famous sheet of granite, climbing...") no one would have any problem with "climbing" there because it would come after a comma. But the comma there wouldn't exist solely to set up "climbing" as a modifier - its other job is to complete the appositive modifier (in this case "California's famous sheet of granite").

3) In this case, "a feat once thought impossible" isn't a modifier of the adjacent noun phrase "Yosemite's El Capitan" so I can see why dashes may be more appropriate for setting up that modifier.

4) And then at that point you'd never put a comma right after a dash, so the dash is performing the role that the comma would have played had the modifier "Yosemite's El Capitan" been a more classic appositive modifier.

5) And I think this is really important: hard questions are going to use less-common, less-familiar structures so you'll often face situations like (E) where you don't quite know "the rule" but you have to prioritize: does it violate a major rule that you *know* is a fatal flaw (like the bad modifiers in A and B)? If not, be patient until you've eliminated 3-4 answer choices to see if you need to make that less-common decision or not. Here I think you can find enough wrong with A-D that if you see that the dashes (which you know can separate modifiers) basically serve the same purpose as commas and you know you'd never use "--," as a structure, you can be confident that E is "peculiar, but not necessarily wrong." One of my favorite quotes about SC is from my Veritas Prep colleague and co-author Chris (who has climbed, but not free-soloed, El Cap several times): "I learn a lot about grammar by using good strategy on official SC problems, eliminating four answer choices, and looking at the strange construct that's left and thinking 'huh, I didn't know you could do that.' And then over the next few weeks reading the New York Times, The Economist, etc. I'll see that construct a few times and realize "yep, the GMAT knows what's it's doing." And what he means by that is you can't prepare for every unique structure out there...you just have to get really good at prioritizing the common errors and train yourself to live with and think about (e.g. "that doesn't break any rules I know of and it preserves a logical meaning so I guess that's okay") some of the stranger things. Which is what makes SC a 'reasoning' question type and not a pure grammatical memorization type.

AjiteshArun · Answer

Great job on the other options! Let's put everything together: Option A : By placing Alex Honnold after once thought to be impossible, this option implies that Alex Honnold was once thought to be impossible. Meaning call. Option B : By placing El Capitan after once thought impossible, this option implies that El Capitan was once thought to be impossible. However, it is actually the "free solo" of El Capitan that was once thought to be impossible, not El Capitan itself. Meaning call. "Was 'free soloed'" is passive and therefore avoidable (the main reason to remove this option remains the meaning call though). Option C : Becoming the first person to achieve a feat that was once thought to be impossible does not link the "feat once thought impossible" idea to "the free solo of El Capitan", so this option makes it sound as if Alex Honnold became the first person ever to achieve any feat that was thought to be impossible. That is, no other person in history had ever achieved any "impossible" feat before Alex Honnold achieved this particular feat. It'd also be better to keep the "in 2017" bit outside the first clause, so that the focus ("impossible feat") remains on "free solo" (and not "free solo in 2017"). Option D : This option includes the "in just under four hours" bit in the "impossible feat" idea, which is not likely to be the intended meaning. "Yosemite’s 3,000-foot El Capitan" makes it harder for the reader to understand that there is only one El Capitan, because the "3,000-foot" bit could be misinterpreted (maybe there is a 5,000-foot El Capitan

). Option E : The best of the 5 options, although we need to overlook the slight ambiguity (there in option D as well) introduced by "X became Y—a feat once thought impossible" (this could mean that "X became Y" is what was once considered impossible).

fogarasm · Answer

Not an expert here, just my reasoning:

A & B - "Once thought impossible/to be impossible" must modify what comes directly after it. In this case, neither Alex Honnold, nor El Captian is "thought to be impossible". Furthermore, B uses the passive tense: "El Capitan was free soloed" - which is less preferable on the GMAT (not an auto disqualification though).

C - This one's a bit harder to articulate. As a native english speaker, this sounds very awkward, so compared to E, which has no errors, it was an easy choice to eliminate. But I know that's not super helpful, so I'm hoping someone else can fill you (and me) in on specifically why it is wrong.

D - This one changes the meaning—it sounds like it was the fact that it took him only 4 hours to climb El Capitan that was thought be impossible. Instead, it's that he climbed it at all.

E - Clear, concise, and no errors.

globaldesi · Answer

Hi
 Can you explain why D is wrong. Doesn't the sentence actually means that it was an impossible feat and "in just under four hours" is correct.

AjiteshArun · Answer

Here are the sentences we get with D and E:

D   Alex Honnold became the first person  to “free solo” Yosemite’s 3,000-foot El Capitan in just under four hours , a  feat  that was once thought to be impossible.  (I've removed "climb without the aid of any ropes")

E   Alex Honnold became the first person  to “free solo” Yosemite’s El Capitan —a  feat  once thought impossible—climbing the 3,000-foot wall without the aid of any ropes  in just under four hours .

In D, the "impossible feat" is after the clause that contains "free solo in four hours", which means that the impossible feat is that the free solo was done in four hours. For example:

He ran the mile in under four minutes, a feat once thought impossible.  ← This doesn't mean that running a mile was considered impossible. It means that running a mile  in under 4 minutes  was considered impossible, which is the correct meaning (in this case).

In E, the "impossible feat" bit is in the middle, just after "free solo" but before "four hours". This means that "four hours" is not included in the impossible feat.

The people who made this question probably added the "to be" after  thought  and  3000-foot El Capitan  because they didn't think that there was enough in the sentence to help a test taker to choose between D and E purely on the basis of meaning. Although it is not incorrect to say  3000-foot El Capitan , it opens the sentence up to some ambiguity. For example:

They climbed Nepal's 29,000-foot Mount Everest.  ← This usage is not exactly unheard of, but it could imply that there is more than one Mount Everest.

Wulfang · Answer

In option E, how is 'climbing' modifying the preceding clause without having a comma before it.

jaisonsunny77 · Answer

A - Once thought to be impossible, Alex Honnold successfully “free soloed” Yosemite’s El Capitan in 2017, climbing the 3,000-foot wall without the aid of any ropes in just under four hours.  -  (A) implies that ''Alex'' was 'once thought to be impossible'. How can a person be considered as 'impossible'?
  
B - Once thought impossible, El Capitan was “free soloed” for the first time in 2017 by Alex Honnold, who climbed the 3,000-foot wall in just under four hours without the aid of any ropes.  -  (B) implies that ''El Captain'' was 'once thought to be impossible'. How can a wall be considered as 'impossible'?
  
C - Alex Honnold “free soloed” Yosemite’s El Capitan in 2017, climbing the 3,000-foot wall without the aid of ropes in just under four hours and becoming the first person to achieve a feat that was once thought to be impossible.  -  the event being described took place in the past. Hence, it is inappropriate to have the present progressive verb tense ''becoming''.  
 
D - In 2017, Alex Honnold became the first person to “free solo”—climb without the aid of any ropes—Yosemite’s 3,000-foot El Capitan in just under four hours, a feat that was once thought to be impossible.  -  (D) implies that ''four hours'' was once a feat that was thought to be impossible. 
 
E - In 2017, Alex Honnold became the first person to “free solo” Yosemite’s El Capitan—a feat once thought impossible—climbing the 3,000-foot wall without the aid of any ropes in just under four hours. - has no error. Hence,    (E) is the right answer choice.

PS: If you feel like you need any help with the CR/SC corrections of the GMAT, please feel free to DM me.

mohitprabhat · Answer

GMATNinja  Could you pls help with D Vs E?

nayas96 · Answer

Why does the prepositional phrase, "Once thought to be impossible" can modify only the noun. Why cant it explain the whole sentence "Alex Honnold successfully “free soloed” Yosemite’s El Capitan in 2017"?

ExpertsGlobal5 · Answer

Hello  mohitprabhat ,

We hope this finds you well.

Having gone through the question and your query, we believe we can resolve your doubt.

Option D places information that is important to the core meaning of the sentence (the fact that "free solo" means to climb without ropes) between dashes; such information cannot be placed between dashes. Option E only places extra information (the fact that free soloing El Capitan was once though to be impossible) between dashes.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
Experts' Global Team

ExpertsGlobal5 · Answer

Hello  nayas96 ,

We hope this finds you well.

Having gone through the question and your query, we believe we can resolve your doubt.

In a "phrase + comma + noun" construction, the phrase modifies the noun and must do so correctly.

To understand the concept of "Phrase Comma Subject" and "Subject Comma Phrase" on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~1minute):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xx_5LxK5Bh0

All the best!
Experts' Global Team

Mavisdu1017 · Answer

ExpertsGlobal5  hello expert, sorry I cannot clearly understand what you said, and could you illustrate it further? 
Form my perspective, in D: climb without ropes is to explain the meaning of ”free solo”, so it is in between dash. And it(climb without ropes) can be regarded as parenthesis, and D is the same meaning with E(free soloing El Capitan was once though to be impossible) if we removed the parenthesis.
So where is D wrong? Thanks.

ExpertsGlobal5 · Answer

Hello  Mavisdu1017 ,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, in this sentence the explanation of what “free solo” means is critical information because it affects the core meaning of the sentence - what is it that Alex Honnold did; by contrast, the fact that free soloing El Capitan was once thought to be impossible is just extra information because it has no bearing on the core meaning of the sentence.

Thus, we can say that Option D incorrectly places important information between dashes, and Option E correctly places only extra information between dashes.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
Experts' Global Team

Mavisdu1017 · Answer

ExpertsGlobal5  hello expert, I know this rule that we cannot put important info in between dash, but how can I distinguish important info. from extra info. before I know the correct answer? Frankly I feel “once thought to be impossible” also an important info. Mind to explain it further? Much thanks.

ExpertsGlobal5 · Answer

Hello  Mavisdu1017 ,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, in order to differentiate between important information and extra information, you must identify what the main message that the sentence conveys is; extra information is anything that is not needed to convey that message; in this case, the main message is that Alex was the first person to climb the mountain in a particular way; the fact that doing so was once considered impossible is just an additional fact that helps convey how difficult the feat was; the fact that the climb was done without ropes is important information because that is what made Alex's climb unique.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
Experts' Global Team

VerbalBot · Answer

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Once thought to be impossible, Alex Honnold successfully free soloed

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