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27 Jan 2014, 10:20
Kudos
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"The Indian government and public had been outraged by her arrest last month, which she said involved handcuffs, strip-searching and time in the lock-up with common
criminals and drug addicts."
This is a sentence from the Economist. What I would like to know is whether the use of "which" in "arrest last month, which" is acceptable in GMAT. Although used to describe "arrest", "which" is not following it, but it is rather following a modifier - that I feel is not a "mission critical" one. After all, this is a very important news and the arrest automatically refers to "her". So, is this a justifiable use in GMAT?
criminals and drug addicts."
This is a sentence from the Economist. What I would like to know is whether the use of "which" in "arrest last month, which" is acceptable in GMAT. Although used to describe "arrest", "which" is not following it, but it is rather following a modifier - that I feel is not a "mission critical" one. After all, this is a very important news and the arrest automatically refers to "her". So, is this a justifiable use in GMAT?
27 Jan 2014, 11:49
Kudos
Bookmarks
Great question! I like the fact that you are reading The Economist and thinking about these issues. 
First, let me clarify that we are speculating here. We can talk about what the GMAT tests and how they test it, but since we are talking about a sentence from a news source, we can't be 100% certain what the GMAT would do. But I think we can get close.
The GMAT is pretty strict when it comes to modification. They want the modifier as close as possible to the word that is modified. In this sentence, the modifier starting with "which" is pretty close to "arrest," which you rightly point out. It would really depend on the other options that you were given in a question. I could see this being the right answer if all the other answer choices are worse. But if you find a sentence like the following one in the answer choices, then that would be the answer you should choose:
"The Indian government and public had been outraged by her last-month arrest, which she said involved handcuffs, strip-searching and time in the lock-up with common criminals and drug addicts."
In this sentence, the modifier and the word being modified are as close as they could possibly be. This is what the GMAT likes to see. But we have another thing to consider now—is the style better? Do is read easily? The only reason that I bring this up is because "last-month arrest" is a little strange, but probably not strange enough to make it wrong.
I hope this helps!
Cheers,
Kevin
sgangs
"The Indian government and public had been outraged by her arrest last month, which she said involved handcuffs, strip-searching and time in the lock-up with common criminals and drug addicts."
This is a sentence from the Economist. What I would like to know is whether the use of "which" in "arrest last month, which" is acceptable in GMAT. Although used to describe "arrest", "which" is not following it, but it is rather following a modifier - that I feel is not a "mission critical" one. After all, this is a very important news and the arrest automatically refers to "her". So, is this a justifiable use in GMAT?
This is a sentence from the Economist. What I would like to know is whether the use of "which" in "arrest last month, which" is acceptable in GMAT. Although used to describe "arrest", "which" is not following it, but it is rather following a modifier - that I feel is not a "mission critical" one. After all, this is a very important news and the arrest automatically refers to "her". So, is this a justifiable use in GMAT?
First, let me clarify that we are speculating here. We can talk about what the GMAT tests and how they test it, but since we are talking about a sentence from a news source, we can't be 100% certain what the GMAT would do. But I think we can get close.
The GMAT is pretty strict when it comes to modification. They want the modifier as close as possible to the word that is modified. In this sentence, the modifier starting with "which" is pretty close to "arrest," which you rightly point out. It would really depend on the other options that you were given in a question. I could see this being the right answer if all the other answer choices are worse. But if you find a sentence like the following one in the answer choices, then that would be the answer you should choose:
"The Indian government and public had been outraged by her last-month arrest, which she said involved handcuffs, strip-searching and time in the lock-up with common criminals and drug addicts."
In this sentence, the modifier and the word being modified are as close as they could possibly be. This is what the GMAT likes to see. But we have another thing to consider now—is the style better? Do is read easily? The only reason that I bring this up is because "last-month arrest" is a little strange, but probably not strange enough to make it wrong.
I hope this helps!
Cheers,
Kevin
27 Jan 2014, 11:52
Kudos
Bookmarks
sgangs
"The Indian government and public had been outraged by her arrest last month, which she said involved handcuffs, strip-searching and time in the lock-up with common criminals and drug addicts."
This is a sentence from the Economist. What I would like to know is whether the use of "which" in "arrest last month, which" is acceptable in GMAT. Although used to describe "arrest", "which" is not following it, but it is rather following a modifier - that I feel is not a "mission critical" one. After all, this is a very important news and the arrest automatically refers to "her". So, is this a justifiable use in GMAT?
Dear sgangs,This is a sentence from the Economist. What I would like to know is whether the use of "which" in "arrest last month, which" is acceptable in GMAT. Although used to describe "arrest", "which" is not following it, but it is rather following a modifier - that I feel is not a "mission critical" one. After all, this is a very important news and the arrest automatically refers to "her". So, is this a justifiable use in GMAT?
I'm happy to help.
What MGMAT calls "mission-critical" modifiers are also called "vital noun modifiers." You can see more about them here:
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2012/gmat-gramm ... modifiers/
This structure here is perfectly correct and certainly could appear as a correct answer on the GMAT. Is "last month" a vital modifier, a mission-critical modifier? Admittedly, that's debatable. If we were discussing someone who had been arrested on multiple occasions, then the words would constitute a vital modifier. This sentence is about the poor Indian diplomat who clearly had never been arrested before, so that weighs against calling the modifier vital. Let's say that if a vital modifier is black, and a clearly non-vital modifier is white, this one is some shade of gray. Math is totally black & white, but grammar gets into all kinds of shades of gray. Now, here's the really tricky thing ---- if a modifier is a "shade of gray" vital modifier, and it's very short, then there's absolutely no problem sticking it between a noun and another modifier. A long "shade of gray" modifier between a noun and another modifier might create confusions, but short one does not create any confusion.
Does all this make sense?
Mike
