Equally at ease scrambling up the craggiest and treacherous mountain

Question

Equally at ease scrambling up the craggiest and treacherous mountain landscapes as perching on a ready-made barnyard knoll; the goat is  considerably more adaptable than its cousin, the sheep.

(A) Equally at ease scrambling up the craggiest and treacherous mountain landscapes as perching on ready-made barnyard knolls; the goat is

(B) The goat, as comfortable scrambling up the craggiest, most treacherous mountain landscapes as to perch on ready-made barnyard knolls, it is

(C) As comfortable when scrambling up the craggiest, treacherous mountain landscapes as when perching on ready-made barnyard knolls, goats are

(D) Equally at ease scrambling up the craggiest and most treacherous mountain landscapes as they are perching on ready-made barnyard knolls, goats are

(E) As comfortable scrambling up the craggiest, most treacherous mountain landscapes as perching on ready-made barnyard knolls, the goat is

pqhai · Accepted Answer

First, see the non-underline part: "...than  its cousin..." ==> The subject MUST be singular ==> C, D are out immediately.

Equally at ease scrambling up the craggiest and treacherous mountain landscapes as perching on a ready-made barnyard knoll; the goat is  considerably more adaptable than its cousin, the sheep.

A -  Equally at ease scrambling up the craggiest and treacherous mountain landscapes as perching on ready-made barnyard knolls;  the goat is
 Wrong.  The part before the semi colon MUST be a complete sentence. In addition, it MUST be a main sentence, the sentence before the semicolon is dependent sentence.

B - The goat, as comfortable scrambling up the craggiest, most treacherous mountain landscapes as to perch on ready-made barnyard knolls,  it  is
 Wrong.  The phrase "as comfortable....knolls" is modifier. If you remove it, the sentence still makes sense. Let remove the modifier and see: The goat, modifier,  it is.... ==> "it" is placed wrongly.

C - As comfortable when scrambling up the craggiest, treacherous mountain landscapes as when perching on ready-made barnyard knolls, goats  are 
 Wrong.  "are" is wrong.

D - Equally at ease scrambling up the craggiest and most treacherous mountain landscapes as they are perching on ready-made barnyard knolls, goats  are 
 Wrong.  "are" is wrong.

E -  As comfortable scrambling  up the craggiest, most treacherous mountain landscapes  as perching  on ready-made barnyard knolls, the goat  is 
  Correct.   
- Good comparison:  as scrambling ...... as perching .......
- Good S-V agreement: The beginning part is modifier. The goat  is  singular --> correct.

Hope it helps.

Kushchokhani · Answer

Bunuel   carcass

Tag "Parallelism" marked twice.

vishnuns39620 · Answer

I had chosen D, missing out on the Singular/plural forms! But the above explanation was very insightful, thank you pghai!!!

akshaychaturvedi007 · Answer

IMO E.. 1. Cut out the fluff in between, i.e. - "most treacherous mountain landscapes"; 2. See the usage of the idiom "as..as.." 3. Options ending with 'goats' can't be correct since the non-underlined part refers to the singular 'sheep'; also, here, notice the use of the determiner "the", which should be repeated at both points to construct correct parallelism. And there you go - option E 8-)

OmniPrep · Answer

I at first crossed off answers until I was reading E and then could not get passed the awkward wording in the middle of the sentence.

"E - As comfortable scrambling up the  craggiest, most treacherous mountain landscapes as perching  on ready-made barnyard knolls, the goat is"

Is this portion I've  bolded  really worded correctly? It completely threw me off and I opted to select D as my second best. Anyone else experience this?

Valerun · Answer

Equally at ease scrambling up the craggiest and treacherous mountain landscapes as perching on a ready-made barnyard knoll; the goat is considerably more adaptable than its cousin, the sheep.

The use of a semi-colon would imply that the "Equally at ease...barnyard knoll" is an independant clause. There is no subject, so A is incorrect and we should realise that it is a modifier for the noun "goat" or noun phrase "the goat"

Once we realise this and spot that the end of the sentence is singular "its cousin" not "their cousin"

Modifier, + the/a goat is considerably more adaptable than its cousin, the sheep

The only answer choice avaliable is E

OmniPrep · Answer

Thanks Valerun, its clear now. I had been focusing on what I perceived as awkward wording and had missed the very different endings to the underlined portion. Definitely making a note to look again for additional differences if I get tripped up on one segment.

thuyduong91vnu · Answer

Hi,

Could someone help to explain, I have two questions about this:

1, "Comfortable" is used to modify the verbs "scramble up" and "perch", right? So why it should not be in adverb form instead? I mean, what is wrong with "As comfortably scrambling up the craggiest, most treacherous mountain landscapes as perching on..."? I think I am misunderstanding something here

2, If we want to use "Equally at ease" to make this comparison, so how the sentence should be?

Thanks for your help

2, If we want to use "Equally at ease" to make this comparison, so how the sentence should be? Thanks for your help

sayantanc2k · Answer

1. First, "scrambling up" and "perching" are not verbs, but gerunds. Moroever, the adjective "comfortable" does not modify these gerunds but the "the goat". Consider the following simple example:

I am comfortable travelling by train.

The adjective "comfortable" modifies "I", not "travelling by trains".

2. Equally at ease (with) scrambling up the craggiest, most treacherous mountain landscapes AND (with) perching on ready-made barnyard knolls, the goat is....

The simple structure to understand would be:
I am equally at ease with X AND Y.

kamathimanshu · Answer

Shouldn't there be a "and" between craggiest and most treacherous?

sayantanc2k · Answer

It is stylistically alright not to use "and" between two adjectives - "the tall, dark man", " the sweet, little child" are both alright.

Adambhau · Answer

Official Explanation:

This sentence begins by describing the versatility of goats: they are just as comfortable in treacherous mountain landscapes as on more pastoral grounds, leading to the more general claim that goats are more adaptable than sheep.
 
(A) Craggiest, a superlative that compares the given landscapes to others, does not make sense in parallel to treacherous, an adjective that does not. The portion of this choice preceding the semicolon is a fragment, not a complete sentence as required.
 
(B) In the construction as comfortable scrambling as to perch, scrambling and to perch should be parallel but are not. In addition, this sentence is a run-on: if the intervening modifier (as comfortable…knolls) is eliminated, the resulting sentence reads: The goat it is more adaptable. A sentence cannot have two subjects without a conjunction in between.
 
(C) Craggiest, a superlative that compares the given landscapes to others, does not make sense in parallel to treacherous, an adjective that does not. In addition, the plural noun goats does not match with the singular pronoun its. The sheep cannot be its own cousin, so the pronoun its has no acceptable antecedent.
 
(D) The plural noun goats does not match with the singular pronoun its. The sheep cannot be its own cousin, so the pronoun its has no acceptable antecedent.
 
(E) CORRECT. The singular noun the goat serves as a proper antecedent for the pronoun its. The superlatives craggiest and most treacherous, both of which compare the given landscapes to others, make sense in parallel. Scrambling and perching are also parallel.

Carcass · Answer

Tag already fixed

Thank you

Equally at ease scrambling up the craggiest and treacherous mountain

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Equally at ease scrambling up the craggiest and treacherous mountain

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