V11-06

Official Solution:

Widely known to be the Ten Commandments, the Decalogue, mentioned twice in the Hebrew Bible, first at Exodus 20:1–17, and then at Deuteronomy 5:4–21, are commandments those the Bible describes as having been given to the Israelites by God at biblical Mount Sinai.

A. to be the Ten Commandments, the Decalogue, mentioned twice in the Hebrew Bible, first at Exodus 20:1–17, and then at Deuteronomy 5:4–21, are commandments those the Bible describes as having been
B. as the Ten Commandments, the Decalogue, mentioned twice in the Hebrew Bible, first at Exodus 20:1–17, and then at Deuteronomy 5:4–21, is a set of commandments those the Bible describes as being
C. to be the Ten Commandments, the Decalogue had been mentioned twice in the Hebrew Bible, first at Exodus 20:1–17, and then at Deuteronomy 5:4–21, and it described them as being
D. as the Ten Commandments, the Decalogue, mentioned twice in the Hebrew Bible, first at Exodus 20:1–17, and then at Deuteronomy 5:4–21, is a set of commandments that the Bible describes as having been
E. to be the Ten Commandments, the Decalogue, mentioned twice in the Hebrew Bible, first at Exodus 20:1–17, and then at Deuteronomy 5:4–21, are those that the Bible describes as having been


A. The idiom known to be is inappropriate. For naming, known as is correct usage. Decalogue is a set of commandments and is thus singular; the verb are does not match with the singular subject the Decalogue.

B. The participle being given is wrongly used to refer to an action that happened in the past; having been given is better.

C. The idiom known to be is inappropriate. The use of the verb had been in incorrect. The sentence implies that the action mentioned happened before the action described. The participle being is incorrect.

D. Correct. Fixes the problems above: the idiom known as is correctly used. The verb is correctly refers to the singular subject Decalogue. The participle having been is correctly used.

E. The idiom known to be is inappropriate. The verb are does not match with the singular subject the Decalogue.


Answer: D
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Why "having been given" is correct in option D?
Thanks.

sayantanc2k souvik101990

IMO every option is incorrect here.
Can you please check here.
A and E - The Decalogue is a set, So we need Singular Verb - OUT
B and C - Being is used for temporary conditions - OUT

But in D - The latter part after commandments has a THAT, Which refers to commandments and thus the verb should be Plural.

Please can you confirm if i am right.

GMATNinja,

Seems this questions is not discussed more. I have question around option B and D around which I was hovering. First of all could you please help with usage of 'being' in general and over here ? Is 'being' is used only for present action and which form of verb and tense it represents ? And then second question is around option B in which use of 'those' sounds more appropriate than 'that' in option D. But Am I correct in understanding that GMAT does not prefer 'those' in general in OA ?

Thanks - Navinash.

I stucked with the same point: when the noun is plural, is "those" preferred to "that"?

NAvinash, faltan Let's Deep-dive!
Original sentence:

Widely known to be the Ten Commandments, the Decalogue, mentioned twice in the Hebrew Bible, first at Exodus 20:1–17, and then at Deuteronomy 5:4–21, are commandments those the Bible describes as having been given to the Israelites by God at biblical Mount Sinai.

Meaning:
Subject-Verb

The Decalogue, worldly known as the Ten Commandments,

is mentioned twice in the Hebrew Bible, first at Exodus 20:1–17, and then at Deuteronomy 5:4–21

AND
is a set of commandments

that the Bible describes as - Something.

Something: having been given to the Israelites by God at biblical Mount Sinai.

Sentence-Structure:

Modifier + Independent Clause + that + Dependent Clause.

- The term 'That' is pointing neither to a set of commandments nor to the commandments.
Subject-Verb

Example: I am going to visit a set of B-schools that I adore.

To understand the meaning of the entire sentence, read the non-underlined part SLOWLY.

The commandments ( plural ) were NEVER given to the Israelites by God at biblical Mount Sinai. - commandments were never part of the crux of the sentence.
Infact, Decalogue, which is a set of commandments, was given to the Israelites by God at biblical Mount Sinai.

Let's solve:

1st check -

IDIOM: Something is known as NOT known to be
2nd check -

The Decalogue is a set, So we need Singular Verb.
In between B & D:
The usage of being is convoluted.
'Those' breaks the sentence-structure and does NOT show the sentence with alacrity and succinctness

D is the champion!
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Are there any cases where "known to be" and "known as" are interchangeable???....

Posted from my mobile device

While i agree with the explanation and i marked D as correct answer too, i was alarmed looking at explanation that "known to be" is an inappropriate idiom. I have seen this idiom being used in so many questions and so i went back to an article by magoosh on idioms where they have explained this idiom as correct. Here is the link : https://magoosh.com/gmat/verbal/idioms/ ... d-knowing/
The father was surprised when his daughter, known to be vegan, raved about the food at the diner.
This is an example from the article. Besides, just a search on the forum for known to be showed so many questions using this.
I feel there are other errors in answer choices A,C and E which eliminate them but not this idiom.

GMATNinja could you please weigh your thoughts on this?

Seems not plausible, since relative pronoun cannot jump over the preceding VERB to modify the subject.
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Hi GMATNinja, Bunuel, egmat,
Can someone please clarify the use of "having been + participle" in the correct choice. I got everything correct but failed to realise that there is nothing wrong in the use of "having been"

Hi GMATNinja, Bunuel, egmat,
Can someone please clarify the use of "having been + participle" in the correct choice. I got everything correct but failed to realise that there is nothing wrong in the use of "having been"

I think this is a high-quality question and I agree with explanation.
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