The presence of superionic ice likely explains the lopsided, off-cente

Question

The presence of superionic ice likely explains the lopsided, off-center magnetic fields of Uranus and  Neptune; the solar system’s seventh and eighth planets that are known as ice giants and  visited briefly by NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft in the 1980s.

A. Neptune; the solar system’s seventh and eighth planets that are known as ice giants and

B. Neptune: the solar system’s seventh and eighth planets that are known as ice giants and

C. Neptune, the solar system’s seventh and eighth planets that are known as ice giants and

D. Neptune, which are the solar system’s seventh and eighth planets, known as ice giants, and

E. Neptune, the solar system’s seventh and eighth planets that are known as ice giants and were

Bunuel · Accepted Answer

VERITAS PREP OFFICIAL SOLUTION:

There is a clear decision point following Neptune: semicolon, colon, comma, or “which,” so you could start there. The semi-colon in (A) is clearly incorrect, as what follows it is not an independent clause, so the original can be eliminated. For (B), the colon is also being misused (although not as obviously as the semi-colon in (A)) – what follows is not helping you understand what precedes it or providing a more detailed list for what precedes it; it is just extra, superfluous information. Given that, the appositive modifiers in (C) and (E) and the “which” clause in (D) would all be appropriate following “Uranus and Neptune.”

In deciding between (C), (D), (E) notice the difference at the end (which you could have done to start for all the answers) between “giants, and” “giants and” and “giants and were” and then figure out why that matters. In all of the answers but (D) and (E), the sentence states “planets that are known as ice giants and VISITED by the Voyager spacecraft in the 1980s” – talk about an illogical timeline! The “are” must go with both verbs so these answers are illogically saying that the “planets are known as this and ARE visited in the 1980s.” Since the tense has changed (they are still known as ice giants now but were visited in the past by the spacecraft) you must have “are known as this and WERE visited in the 1980s”. (D) commits the same error but does so with a series that is also not parallel: which ARE this, KNOWN as this, and visited in the 1980s. The correct answer is (E).

arghyasenyil · Answer

E is the correct option since it correctly identifies Uranus and Neptune as the solar system's .... Also it correctly uses "were" to denote the past action by NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft in the 1980s.

Please correct me if I'm missing something...

Posted from my mobile device

Posted from my mobile device

Please correct me if I'm missing something...

Posted from my mobile device

CapitalWorks · Answer

Answer choice E, as it maintains the parallelism of "that are ... were".

The "were" cannot be omitted because the planets were visited in the past, hence, A-D are incorrect.

Kchaudhary · Answer

The presence of superionic ice likely explains the lopsided, off-center magnetic fields of Uranus and  Neptune; the solar system’s seventh and eighth planets that are known as ice giants and  visited briefly by NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft in the 1980s.

A. Neptune; the solar system’s seventh and eighth planets  that are known as ice giants   and  visited  - not parallel and after ; a independent clause must follow

B. Neptune: the solar system’s seventh and eighth planets that are known as ice giants and - same as A

C. Neptune, the solar system’s seventh and eighth planets that are known as ice giants and - parallelism error as A

D. Neptune,  which are  the solar system’s seventh and eighth planets,  known  as ice giants, and - modifier error

E. Neptune, the solar system’s seventh and eighth planets that  are known  as ice giants and  were visited  - A noun (planets) + noun modifer (that clause)

Kurtosis · Answer

The presence of superionic ice likely explains the lopsided, off-center magnetic fields of Uranus and Neptune; the solar system’s seventh and eighth planets that are known as ice giants and visited briefly by NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft in the 1980s.

A. Neptune; the solar system’s seventh and eighth planets that are known as ice giants and - We have a modifier phrase after the ';'

B. Neptune: the solar system’s seventh and eighth planets that are known as ice giants and - We need the verb in past tense after 'and'

C. Neptune, the solar system’s seventh and eighth planets that are known as ice giants and - Same as B

D. Neptune, which are the solar system’s seventh and eighth planets, known as ice giants, and - Same as B. 'which' incorrectly refers to just 'Neptune'.

E. Neptune, the solar system’s seventh and eighth planets that are known as ice giants and were - Correct.

Answer: E

abhik1502 · Answer

option E is correct where "were" is being used correctly. Rest all do have verb-ed modifier followed by parallelism error.

Nightmare007 · Answer

E is best among others. However, I feel that we should repeat THAT after and to make it more proper and easy.

still E is Right because there is no verb to whom we can associate "were" to.

E is the Answer.

AkshdeepS · Answer

VeritasKarishma  :

Why in option E we don,t have another "that" before were.

Isn't it required to make parallel relative clauses?

KarishmaB · Answer

The first "that" is common to both. 
... that are known as ... and (that) were visited ...

You don't need to repeat it.

mahi816 · Answer

D) Neptune, which are the solar system’s seventh and eighth planets, known as ice giants, and

In option D, i was a bit confused regarding the usage of which.

Is which referring to  Uranus and Neptune (or) only  Neptune ?

Arro44 · Answer

While I would agree with E being the best answer choice, I am not 100% happy with it. In my opinion, the statement makes it sound like there are at least 8 ice giants in our solar system.

AjiteshArun · Answer

Option D is:

...  Uranus and Neptune ,  which  are  the solar system’s seventh and eighth planets ...

Given that there is an  are  there, and that the  which  includes information about both planets, I think we can safely say that the  which  is meant to refer to  Uranus and Neptune .

RastogiSarthak99 · Answer

The rest of the choices are so tempting except for the last word, "were" If something happened in the 80s, it should be past tense, right? the planets "were" briefly visited in the 80s.

E.

pravalithota · Answer

All the options except E say that the ice giants visited briefly, however, ice giants cannot by themselves visit but they can only be visited by someone and thus, option E which clears this is the right option.
Answer: E

lakshya14 · Answer

Can the modifier for both the planets "the solar system's seventh.....that are....were" act as a descriptive phrases since they are clauses with auxiliary verbs?  AndrewN  ?

AndrewN · Answer

Sure,  lakshya14 , that presents no problem at all. The two-pronged embedded clause in (E) is  not  independent, since you could not write a standalone sentence that featured either continuation from the auxiliary verb on:

1) The solar system’s seventh and eighth planets  that are known as ice giants . (Fragment—no verb in the main clause.)

2) The solar system’s seventh and eighth planets  that were visited briefly by NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft in the 1980s . (Same issue as before.)

We would need a verb to follow the subordinate clause in either sentence to create an overarching independent clause. Thus, what we see in (E) is a modifying phrase for the objects of the preposition in the main clause,  Uranus and Neptune . It just happens to follow an  X and Y  form within an embedded clause.

I hope that helps. I know the phrase at the end is longer than we may be used to seeing, and that it builds from a complex element, but if you follow the grammar, you will see that it is still nothing more than a modifier.

Thank you for thinking to ask me.

- Andrew

VerbalBot · Answer

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The presence of superionic ice likely explains the lopsided, off-cente

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