The best way for scholars to analyze fragmentary poems is

Question

The best way for scholars to analyze fragmentary poems is  to attempt to reconstruct it into a complete poem based on both the sense and the meter of the available fragments .

A. to attempt to reconstruct it into a complete poem based on both the sense and the meter of the available fragments

B. if they attempt a reconstruction of it into complete poems based on both the sense and the meter o of the available fragments

C. for them to be reconstructed into complete poems basing it on both the sense and the meter of fragments being available

D. if an attempt is made for reconstructing them into complete poems based on both the sense and the meter of the fragments available to them

E. to attempt to reconstruct them into complete poems based on both the sense and the meter of the available fragments

OE
 As written, this sentence contains a major problem—the singular pronoun it and a complete poem refer to the plural poems mentioned in the non-underlined portion of the sentence; thus we eliminate both (A) and (B). For the sake of parallelism, the infinitive to analyze must be balanced by another infinitive, and so choice (D) can be discarded because it doesn't use a parallel construction.

Choice (C) uses an awkward passive infinitive to be reconstructed, and the participle basing cannot modify poems, which its position deems necessary. Also, it, the object of basing , has no singular noun to refer to; and last but not least, being available is unidiomatic. Eliminate (C). Choice (E) fixes the pronoun problem with the plural them and poems without making any other changes and is, therefore, the correct answer.

Hi, I want to know if "reconstruct into" is an idiom, please.

sivasanjeev · Answer

Not necessarily.

The face was reconstructed from the dead tissue.
The face was reconstructed in great detail
The face was reconstructed on an experimental basis.

Reconstruct may take a number of prepositions.

gmatFalcon · Answer

Can somebody explain why answer D is wrong ?

DmitryFarberMPrep · Answer

gmatFalcon , there are two immediate problems with D. First, we can't say "the best way is if." We either say "the best way is X" or "Y will happen if X." "The best way" can't be a condition satisfied by X.

Second, "an attempt for" is the wrong idiom. We "attempt to" do something.

DmitryFarberMPrep · Answer

@goodyear2013,"reconstruct into" works, but it's not really a common idiom one needs to memorize. As  sivasanjeev  points out, there are many words we could use with "reconstruct."

In this case, the meaning is a bit odd. Honestly, I don't love it. It's really the poem that we are reconstructing, not the fragments, and so it's a little strange to say that we are reconstructing the fragments into a poem. However, this is all academic, since all five choices have the same usage. Clearly, it's not an issue we need to consider to solve this question.

gmatFalcon · Answer

Thanks DmitryFarber. make sense now

VerbalBot · Answer

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The best way for scholars to analyze fragmentary poems is

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The best way for scholars to analyze fragmentary poems is

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