By choosing glass apartments towering a hundred feet over

Question

By choosing glass apartments towering a hundred feet over brownstone units designed for earlier generations, seemingly younger-than-ever moneyed professionals have embraced a modern design ethic that accentuated  their luxury-laden lives.

(A) By choosing glass apartments towering a hundred feet over brownstone units designed for earlier generations, seemingly younger-than-ever moneyed professionals have embraced a modern design ethic that accentuated

(B) By choosing glass apartments towering a hundred feet over brownstone units designed for earlier generations, seeming younger-than-ever moneyed professionals have embraced a modern design ethic that accentuates

(C) In choosing glass apartments in hundred-foot towers instead of brownstone units designed for earlier generations, seemingly younger-than-ever moneyed professionals have embraced a modern design ethic that accentuates

(D) In choosing glass apartments in hundred-foot towers instead of brownstone units designed for earlier generations, seemingly younger-than-ever moneyed professionals have embraced a modern design ethic that accentuated

(E) In choosing glass apartments towering a hundred feet over brownstone units designed for earlier generations, seeming younger-than-ever moneyed professionals have embraced a modern design ethic, accentuating

anairamitch1804 · Accepted Answer

OE :

The original sentence contains two problems. First, “towering a hundred feet over brownstone units” is
unclear and implies the absurd meaning that the glass apartments are located directly over
brownstone units in different buildings. Second, the verb "accentuated" should be in the present tense,
since the earlier use of the present perfect tense ("have embraced") implies that the embracing is still
happening, and therefore that the ethic accentuates the lives in the general present. Incidentally, in
this context, "by choosing" and "in choosing" have nearly identical meanings; as a result, this split is
immaterial.

(A) Incorrect, as it repeats the original sentence.

(B) This choice repeats the errors from the choice (A) and adds another. The adjective
“seeming” is incorrect, since adjectives modify nouns; it is not “seeming professionals,” but
“seemingly younger... professionals.” An adverb must be used to describe an adjective.

(C) CORRECT. Using “in hundred-foot towers instead of” rather than “towering a hundred feet
over” makes the intended meaning clearer. Also, the verb "accentuates" is in the proper tense
(present).

(D) The verb "accentuated" should not be in the past tense, as noted above.

(E) In this choice, “towering a hundred feet over brownstone units” is unclear and implies the
absurd meaning that the glass apartments are located directly over brownstone units in
different buildings. The adjective “seeming” is incorrect, as noted earlier in choice B. An
adverb must be used to describe an adjective. Finally, the participle "accentuating"
should arguably be replaced with the relative clause "that accentuates"; following
a comma, the participle implies that the professionals are doing the accentuating,
rather than the design ethic. This change of meaning is inadvisable.

suyashjhawar · Answer

Going By choosing over In choosing,Hence down to A and B.A because of use of accentuated over accentuates.Moreover use of seemingly correct over seeming as modifying professionals.May be wrong.Go with A

goalsnr · Answer

We need an adverb "seemingly" -> B,E are out
"have embraced " X that attentuates Y ->Parallelism
-> A,D ->out

answer :C

NewSc2 · Answer

Isn't the idiom choosing X OVER Y, not choosing X INSTEAD OF Y?

shrouded1 · Answer

there is a couple of things wrong here :

(a) the use of "seeming younger than ever"
(b) ending the sentence with "accentuated", that should be in the present tense

If you use these are markers, you can eliminate all the choices except C.

Its a very good question, because if you reason like this, it is easy to get to C but the correct answer choice uses "instead of", something that typically GMAT questions don't consider correct, its almost always "rather than" ... this sentence being the almost in almost always !

goktug88 · Answer

I eliminated C,D,E because I could not justify the use of 'in' rather than 'by' . In which cases is it ok to replace them with each other ? I am not a native speaker and hadn't seen usage of in like this one before.

crick20002002 · Answer

Since the whole sentence is underlined , we can check out the choices independently for actual intent of the author.

Keeping Grammar in mind the split between choices is
1) between seeming(adjective and seemingly(adverb) - We need an adverb to modify the adjective  younger-than-ever   - B and E are out.

2) Looking at tense consistency, we can figure out that we would need to have a present tense for  accentuate  - A and D out.

Left with C.

I agree if the choice was between  By choosing  and  In choosing , I would have preferred  By choosing . But that question did not arise as there were grammatical errors in all other choices.

Crick

Tgt750 · Answer

So I chose B,

Re arrange the sentence by starting with second half (after the comma) and add first half to the rest of the sentence. Between, A and B, B fits well for using 'accentuates' with 'Have' (in the second part). But I am not sure if I tripped on 'Seemingly' vs Seeming as mentioned in the post above.

Snowbirds · Answer

I agree on C. It's tough for me because c has a slightly different meaning from A. Towering 100 feet over other buildings is different than 100-foot towers? Did that bother anyone else?

RaviChandra · Answer

Can some one explain the different modifiers in the sentence and the clause/words they modify and also verb in the main clause

In choosing glass apartments in hundred-foot towers instead of brownstone units designed for earlier generations seemingly younger-than-ever moneyed professionals have embraced a modern design ethic that accentuates their luxury-laden lives.

Manofsteel · Answer

Clause 1 - seemingly younger-than-ever moneyed  professionals   have embraced  a modern design ethic
Noun - Professionals | Verb - Have embraced - present perfect. Showing that this embracing still continues

Clause 2 -  that   accentuated  their luxury-laden lives
Noun - that (refering to the modern ethic) | Verb - accentuated

This sentence has two modifiers - 
Modifier 1 - In choosing glass apartments in hundred-foot towers instead of brownstone units designed for earlier generations
Modified entity - seemingly younger-than-ever moneyed professionals have embraced a modern design ethic

Modifier 2 - designed for earlier generations
Modified entity - brownstone units

As regards to error analysis:-
There are 2 easy to spot errors which i used to find the answer.
1. Meaning error - the word 'over' has two meanings
meaning 1 - instead of
meaning 2 - The length of Forum mall is 100 meters over the max allowable length.
The intended meaning in the sentence is 'instead of'
because of this over is ambiguous and from the options instead of is a much better and precise option - this eliminates OPtion A & B
2. Verb tense error - the 2nd clause 'that accentuated their luxury-laden lives' states a present fact and not a past fact because of the tense of the verb in the prev clause i.e present perfect (showing an ongoing action /effect)
hence the verb tense in this clause should be simple present - accentuates
This eliminates D & E and we have Option (C) the right answer

Hope i clarified all your doubts.

Btw where in bangalore are u from? Kormangala?

Manofsteel · Answer

Also is this really a 700 level question? I mean i dunno how to gauge the difficulty of questions?

RaviChandra · Answer

Thank you so much for the reply, but my doubt is still not clear

My first question here is

what is the main Clause in this sentence (Clause after omitting the modifiers)

In choosing glass apartments in hundred-foot towers instead of brownstone units  designed for earlier generations seemingly younger-than-ever moneyed professionals have embraced  a modern design ethic that accentuates their luxury-laden lives.

if the above sentence marked is the main Clause, My next question is

how will "have embraced" in the modifier effect/result in "that accentuates" in the main clause.

please provide example sentence to help me understand better

Thank you

Manofsteel · Answer

What you have marked is not the main clause.
The main clause/ main idea of the sentence is - 
 'In Choosing......seemingly younger-than-ever moneyed professionals have embraced a modern design ethic '.
Thats the main idea of the sentence.

The reason why this is the main clause/idea of the sentence is because the whole sentence talks about ' seemingly younger-than-ever moneyed professional'
In choosing - talks about what these young professionals have choosen
'that accentuates  their  luxury-laden lives' - again talks about these young professionals

The 2nd clause 'that accentuates their luxury-laden lives' - this clause is only valid if the young professionals embrace the new modern ethic , if they dont then this clause is not valid. Hence the verb of this sentence is based on the verb of the earlier clause.

RaviChandra · Answer

thank you its kind of clear now.

I found it hard to comprehend this sentence

meeks · Answer

in this context, "by choosing" and "in choosing" have nearly identical meanings; as a result, this split is immaterial.

dransa · Answer

My 2 cents on this question.
I think this question is from OG.

By choosing glass apartments towering a hundred feet over brownstone units designed for earlier generations, seemingly younger-than-ever moneyed professionals have embraced a modern design ethic that accentuated their luxury-laden lives.

a)  By choosing  glass apartments  towering a hundred feet over brownstone units  designed for earlier generations, seemingly younger-than-ever moneyed professionals have embraced a modern design ethic  that accentuated  >>> By choosing is correct; towering 100 ft over brownstone... is not the intended meaning of the sentece. The sentence intends to compare glass apt in 100ft buildings to brownstone units, where as the construct indicates that glass apts are 100 meter taller than brown units. "that accentuated" is improper tense. The verb should be in present tense , since the 1st part is in present perfect.

b) By choosing glass apartments  towering a hundred feet over brownstone units  designed for earlier generations, seeming younger-than-ever moneyed professionals have embraced a modern design ethic that accentuates

c)  In choosing glass apartments   in hundred-foot towers instead of brownstone units  designed for earlier generations, seemingly younger-than-ever moneyed professionals have embraced a modern design ethic that  accentuates  >>> No difference between "by choosing" and "in choosing" this is a trick. This statement is correct.

d) In choosing glass apartments in hundred-foot towers instead of brownstone units designed for earlier generations, seemingly younger-than-ever moneyed professionals have embraced a modern design ethic  that accentuated  >>> Wrong tense as explained in option A.

e) In choosing glass apartments  towering a hundred feet over brownstone units  designed for earlier generations, seeming younger-than-ever moneyed professionals have embraced a modern design ethic,  accentuating  >>> towering 100 ft over... is wrong(same as option A). Use of accentuating as an adverbial modifier changes the meaning.

lanachen33 · Answer

Hi- 
Why isn't accentuates, accentuate ? Isn't accentuates singular?

By choosing glass apartments towering a hundred feet over brownstone units designed for earlier generations, seemingly younger-than-ever moneyed professionals have embraced a modern design ethic that accentuated their luxury-laden lives."

By choosing glass apartments towering a hundred feet over brownstone units designed for earlier generations, seemingly younger-than-ever moneyed professionals have embraced a modern design ethic that accentuated 
 By choosing glass apartments towering a hundred feet over brownstone units designed for earlier generations, seeming younger-than-ever moneyed professionals have embraced a modern design ethic that accentuates
 In choosing glass apartments in hundred-foot towers instead of brownstone units designed for earlier generations, seemingly younger-than-ever moneyed professionals have embraced a modern design ethic that accentuates
 In choosing glass apartments in hundred-foot towers instead of brownstone units designed for earlier generations, seemingly younger-than-ever moneyed professionals have embraced a modern design ethic that accentuated
 In choosing glass apartments towering a hundred feet over brownstone units designed for earlier generations, seeming younger-than-ever moneyed professionals have embraced a modern design ethic, accentuating

KarishmaB · Answer

In the 'that clause' - 'that accentuates their luxury-laden lives' - the subject of the clause is 'that' which is a placeholder for 'a modern design ethic'. 
The modern design ethic accentuates their luxury-laden lives. The subject is singular (anyway obvious from the use of article 'a' before modern design ethic) and hence needs a singular verb - accentuates.

P.S. - Questions should be put in their respective forums.

By choosing glass apartments towering a hundred feet over

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By choosing glass apartments towering a hundred feet over

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