Because of the haphazard way in which many manuscripts of classical

Question

Q:- Because of the haphazard way in which many manuscripts of classical texts were copied in the Middle Ages, modern scholars must often "emend" or correct words, sentences, and even paragraphs in texts where  much corruption or copy errors exist.

A) much corruption or copy errors exist
B) much corruption or copy errors exists
C) many copy errors and much corruption exists
D) here is much corruption and copy errors
E) there are many copy errors and much corruption

Patronus · Answer

A) much corruption or copy errors exist
 the sentence is "much corruption or (much) copy errors exist". Wrong use of "much" for countable noun, "errors" 
B) much corruption or copy errors exists 
 1) Same error of A
2) Also, incorrect verb tense "exists", singular. "copy errors" is definitely plural and requires plural verb "exist"
 C) many copy errors and much corruption exists - Corrects the countable/uncountable error, however, introduces verb error by using "exists", singular. 
 With the use of "and", the entity requires plural verb "exist" 
D) here is much corruption and copy errors
 Same error of A. 
P.S.: I think the choice starts with "there", not "here"  
E) there are many copy errors and much corruption
 CORRECT

vishwaprakash · Answer

Explanation :
Much is used for Uncountable Noun and Many for countable.
Here in question stem, "Copy errors" are countable and "Corruption" is uncountable.
Many should be used for Copy errors and Much must be use for Corruption

POE

A) much corruption or copy errors exist
Error Explained above - Incorrect

B) much corruption or copy errors exists
Error Explained above - Incorrect

C) many copy errors and much corruption exists
Many is correctly used for Copy errors and Much is correctly used for Corruption. This option removed the errors in sentence but introduce SV Number agreement error. X and (Additive noun) Y , requires Plural Noun. "many copy errors and much corruption " require plural noun "Exist" not singular noun "Exists" 
Incorrect

D) here is much corruption and copy errors
"Where here is" is not idiomatic, Much is used for countable noun Copy errors - Incorrect

E) there are many copy errors and much corruption
Correct

Jam2014 · Answer

is the " where " rightly used here. From sentence it describes the " Text " and where is used for places, countries, sites and are physical in nature.

OptimusPrepJanielle · Answer

Q:- Because of the haphazard way in which many manuscripts of classical texts were copied in the Middle Ages, modern scholars must often "emend" or correct words, sentences, and even paragraphs in texts where  much corruption or copy errors exist .
 much + uncountable (corruption), many + countable (errors). Eliminate A and B. B also has a subject verb agreement error 
A) much corruption or copy errors exist 
B) much corruption or copy errors exists
C) many copy errors and much corruption exists  subject verb error 
D) here is much corruption and copy errors  "here" is not appropriate, "is" isn't in agreement with corruption and errors, and also "much" shouldn't apply to copy errors  
 E)  there are many copy errors and much corruption

shyind · Answer

Also for E) We have the indicator word before the underlined part ' Where '

mvictor · Answer

I do not agree with the explanations given above.

Because of the haphazard way in which many manuscripts of classical texts were copied in the Middle Ages, modern scholars must often "emend" or correct words, sentences, and even paragraphs in texts 
where (1) much corruption 
or (2) copy errors exist.

texts in which are either much corruption or copy errors
perfectly fine.
texts need to be corrected if they have copy errors.

where there - sounds awkward to me.

daagh · Answer

A proximity rules says that in the case of disjunctive subjects using two or more subjects with an “or”, the number of the subject nearest to the verb decides the number of the verb; However, in the case of conjunctive subjects that use ‘and’, the number of verb always remains plural, as after all, it is a plural noun( unless it happens to be one and the same entity)

Per se

A) much corruption or copy errors exist --- ‘errors exist’ is not wrong after all as per proximity rule 
B) much corruption or copy errors exists -- wrong as per proximity rule 
C) many copy errors and much corruption exists --- conjunctive subjects – therefore plural subject; exists is wrong 
D) here is much corruption and copy errors " --- ‘ is’ wrong for the plural subject ‘much corruption and copy errors.’ 
E) there are many copy errors and much corruption – S V is no problem; 
 
E may be a tad better because ‘copy errors’ a countable noun is modified by ‘many’, while A doesn’t indicate such a thing. But if the original is good enough, then there is a convention that the original should be preferred. So I would reckon A is good enough; Thus, as far I see, this topic doesn’t leave much to learn, unless Kaplan has something up its sleeve.

Nunuboy1994 · Answer

The issue with this question is that it implies there are " (much) copy errors." However, "copy errors" are something countable so the correct phrasing is "many copy errors." The issue with C is the usage of "and" with "exists."

E

abhi2707 · Answer

Since the parallelism in E that might be read as
- where there are much corruption
- where much corruption
- where there much corruption..
all seem awkward.

A seems a better option, where proximity of much with corruption might help the option.
Please advise.

abhishekmayank · Answer

Although it is not a decision point, as it is non-underlined, I wonder that this question is from  kaplan , which uses the word "where" in the context, which would obviously be disliked by GMAT in the given context :

"Because of the haphazard way in which many manuscripts of classical texts were copied in the Middle Ages, modern scholars must often "emend" or correct words, sentences, and even paragraphs in texts  where  much corruption or copy errors exist."

himanshu0123 · Answer

A) much corruption or copy errors exist

is there a rule which says that ''much'' modifies copy as well?

especially the 'OR' constructions.

RonTargetTestPrep · Answer

"Much"   can't   modify "errors". ( Copy  is an adjective describing the type of errors here.) 
 Errors  are discrete individual things that can be counted with whole numbers, so we need to write "  many   errors".

In these kinds of constructions,  IF  an adjective can sensibly apply to BOTH nouns 'X' and 'Y', then the  default  understanding of the phrase  "  X and/or Y"  is that the adjective  describes both of them .

This is the default interpretation mainly because, if the intended meaning is for the adjective to apply ONLY to 'X', then it's better to write the phrase as "Y and/or   X" (which is unambiguous).

Most importantly, though—Please don't try to memorize hundreds and hundreds of obscure 'rules' that govern ridiculously detailed niche situations.
Instead, keep your thoughts within the bounds of the  splits in the answer choices —and make sure you're using both common sense and context to evaluate the competing constructions in a given split.

The tremendous value of ALWAYS keeping the multiple choices in mind is well illustrated here: If you stay mindful of the answer choices, then it's obvious that this problem is testing the difference between 'many' (for discrete things that can be counted with whole numbers) and 'much' (for continuous quantities that are not separable into individual units).

wadhwakaran · Answer

A) much corruption or copy errors exist  Incorrect as much can be used to modify corruption only but not copy errors as the latter is countable noun and will take many with it as a modifier 
B) much corruption or copy errors exists  Incorrect as much can be used to modify corruption only but not copy errors as the latter is countable noun and will take many with it as a modifier. Also, 'or' takes near subject rule meaning thereby that verb (exist) will be plural because of plural noun (copy errors)  
C) many copy errors and much corruption exists  Incorrect because of exists as the correct verb will be exist 
D) here is much corruption and copy errors  Incorrect because of many reasons as described above and additionally is also wrong.  
E) there are many copy errors and much corruption  Correct

perseverance2021 · Answer

This is the default interpretation mainly because, if the intended meaning is for the adjective to apply ONLY to 'X', then it's better to write the phrase as "Y and/or   X" (which is unambiguous).

RonTargetTestPrep 
Does this mean that the noun being modified by adjective will be placed after the noun which is not being modified? Meaning , does the sequence of placing the noun with or without adj really matter ?

RonTargetTestPrep · Answer

I guess the answer depends on what you mean by "does it matter?"... Not quite sure what you mean by that. Could you clarify your question in more specific terms, please? 
(The default meaning of "Does this issue matter?" in SC is, essentially, "Could this issue ever have a significant impact on the meaning or clarity of the sentence?"—but that issue is already settled in the post to which you're replying.)

More generally, and MUCH more importantly, please keep the following two things in mind going forward:

• If you're offered a choice between an ambiguous construction and an unambiguous construction, you should of course choose the unambiguous one. 
(Thus, ••IF•• the adjective is only meant to apply to 'X', it's better to write the unambiguous construction "Y and   X" than the ambiguous version "  X and Y".)

•  Do not forget that SC problems are multiple-choice! 
You don't need to WRITE these types of sentences—nor do you need to notice ambiguity 'cold' while reading through a single answer choice.  If something is ambiguous, there will ALWAYS be  another  choice written in a way that's UNambiguous! 
These splits are pretty conspicuous—there aren't too many reasons to shuffle around the order of stuff. 
(The only other reason that comes to my mind is that there may be a modifier directly before or after the underlined part, and so the underlined words might be 'shuffled' in order to place the thing being modified adjacent to the modifier. So... If you see a split in which words are shuffled around, first check to see whether there's a modifier placement issue, and, if not, check for ambiguity next.)

VerbalBot · Answer

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Because of the haphazard way in which many manuscripts of classical

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