Official ExplanationAuthored shortly after World War Two,
Victor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning (1946) and The Unconscious God (1948) accredited man’s drive to stay alive to be the result of the desire to find significance in life during even the most arduous of times.
A. Victor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning (1946) and The Unconscious God (1948) accredited man’s drive to stay alive to be the result ofB. Victor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning (1946) and The Unconscious God (1948) accredited man’s drive to stay alive to result fromC. Victor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning (1946) and The Unconscious God (1948) accredited man’s drive to stay alive toD. in Man’s Search for Meaning (1946) and The Unconscious God (1948), Victor Frankl accredited man’s drive to stay alive to have been the result ofE. Victor Frankl, in Man’s Search for Meaning (1946) and The Unconscious God (1948), accredited man’s drive to stay alive toThis question deals with two issues. The first is the correct use of commas and modifiers. The second is proper idiom format, being “accredited A to B.” Since idioms tend to be easier to deal with than modifiers, let’s start with that. The proper idiom is
“accredited A to B.” Let’s eliminate any options that don’t follow that format. To make it easier to spot, let’s add in the non-underlined end of the sentence:
A) Victor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning (1946) and The Unconscious God (1948)
accredited man’s drive to stay alive
to be the result of the desire to find significance in life during even the most arduous of times. → accredited X to be the result of Y =
WRONGB) Victor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning (1946) and The Unconscious God (1948)
accredited man’s drive to stay alive
to result from the desire to find significance in life during even the most arduous of times. → accredited X to result from Y =
WRONGC) Victor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning (1946) and The Unconscious God (1948)
accredited man’s drive to stay alive
to the desire to find significance in life during even the most arduous of times. → accredited X to Y =
OKAYD) in Man’s Search for Meaning (1946) and The Unconscious God (1948), Victor Frankl
accredited man’s drive to stay alive
to have been the result of the desire to find significance in life during even the most arduous of times. → accredited X to have been the result of Y =
WRONGE) Victor Frankl, in Man’s Search for Meaning (1946) and The Unconscious God (1948),
accredited man’s drive to stay alive
to the desire to find significance in life during even the most arduous of times. → accredited X to Y =
OKAYWe can eliminate options A, B, & D because they don’t follow the idiom “attributed X to Y.” Now that we have it narrowed down to only 2 choices, let’s focus our attention on modifiers and commas. We need to make sure the modifiers and antecedents match up and are next to each other, and we also need to check if there are any comma issues. Again, to make problems easier to spot let’s add in the non-underlined portions:
C) Authored shortly after World War Two,
Victor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning (1946) and The Unconscious God (1948) accredited man’s drive to stay alive to the desire to find significance in life during even the most arduous of times.
This is our
CORRECT choice! The modifier “Authored shortly after World War Two” is placed directly before the two books that were authored, so that’s good. There aren’t any additional commas to deal with, and the idiom is correct.
E) Authored shortly after World War Two,
Victor Frankl, in Man’s Search for Meaning (1946) and The Unconscious God (1948), accredited man’s drive to stay alive to the desire to find significance in life during even the most arduous of times.
This is
INCORRECT for a couple reasons. First, the modifier “Authored shortly after World War Two” is right next to Victor Frankl, and NOT his books. Since a writer cannot be “authored,” this is a misplaced modifier. Second, the commas on either side of the book titles makes them non-essential clauses. This means we should be able to take out this phrase without changing the meaning - but if we do, we’ve taken out the thing that is “authored!” This information IS essential to the intended meaning, so it shouldn’t have commas surrounding it.
There you have it - option C is the correct choice! By focusing first on the idiom, we could eliminate 3 options rather quickly before tackling the more complex issues with modifiers and commas!
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