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May 0608:30 AM PDT
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In Episode 3 of our GMAT Ninja Critical Reasoning series, we tackle Discrepancy, Paradox, and Explain an Oddity questions. You know the feeling: the passage gives you two facts that seem completely contradictory....- May 08
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27 Oct 2020, 23:31
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A
Be sure to select an answer first to save it in the Error Log before revealing the correct answer (OA)!
Difficulty:
25%
(medium)
Question Stats:
77% (01:53) correct
23%
(02:02)
wrong
based on 364
sessions
History
Date
Time
Result
Not Attempted Yet
Efforts to stabilize the political and social climate of Colombia have resulted in large-scale rescues of kidnapping victims, internationally coordinated arrests of drug traffickers, pivotal captures of left-wing terrorist groups, and renewed confidence in the nation’s politicians.
A) large-scale rescues of kidnapping victims, internationally coordinated arrests of drug traffickers, pivotal captures of left-wing terrorist groups, and renewed confidence in the nation’s politicians.
B) sweeping rescuing of kidnapping victims, internationally coordinated arrests of drug traffickers, pivotal capturing of left-wing terrorist groups, and a renewed sense of confidence in the nation’s politicians.
C) sweeping rescuing of kidnapping victims, internationally coordinated arresting of drug traffickers, pivotal capturing of left-wing terrorist groups, and renewed feelings of confidence in the nation’s politicians.
D) large-scale rescues of kidnapping victims, internationally coordinated arrests of drug traffickers, pivotal captures of terrorist groups who are progressive in their ideals, and renewed confidence in the nation’s politicians.
E) sweeping rescues of kidnapping victims, internationally coordinated arrests of drug traffickers, pivotal captures of idealistically progressive terrorist groups, and renovated confidence in the nation’s politicians.
27 Oct 2020, 23:35
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OFFICIAL EXPLANATION
THE PROMPT
RED = CLEAR ERROR
PINK = ERROR that I couldn't code in red because two errors occur back-to-back OR a style/diction error
THE OPTIONS
• the nouns in the list are all in "regular" (not gerund) noun form and are parallel
• "left-wing" is succinct
• I do not see any errors
• the four nouns are not parallel: rescuing, arrests, capturing, confidence
→ compare to option A: rescues, arrests, captures, confidence
→ in general, dedicated nouns such as capture are preferred to gerunds such as capturing
In particular, a list of all dedicated nouns or all ___ING nouns is parallel, but a list of dedicated and ___ING nouns is almost never parallel
→ EXCEPTION: some nouns in English, such as sinking, do not have dedicated nouns and in that case are perfectly parallel to "dedicated" nouns
Okay: The sinking of the passenger ship Lusitania and outrage at German atrocities committed against Belgian citizens catalyzed the U.S. Congress to declare war on Germany and its allies in World War I.
→ sweeping rescuing is a train wreck of hideous prose.
In general, do not place two ___ING words next to each other.
Such placement is not flat-out wrong, but neither is it good form.
Do not memorize this bit of information.
You should be reading 20 minutes a day. See whether you ever find two ___ING words placed back to back.
If you do, you have stumbled upon an idiom (and a poorly constructed idiom at that), such as "His 'good relationships' with barbaric dictators are becoming alarming."
• renewed sense of confidence is wordier than renewed confidence. Both phrases mean the same thing. As long as meaning is clear, choose concision.
ELIMINATE B
• this sentence is grammatical but stylistically inferior to the sentence in option A
→ in this list, the gerunds (verbING nouns) are parallel, but in standard written English and on the GMAT, the noun form (option A) is preferred to the gerund form (option C).
• sweeping rescuing is still a train wreck
• renewed feelings of confidence means the same thing as renewed confidence in option A but is not concise.
ELIMINATE C
• this sentence, too, is grammatical, and its list, like that of A, is composed of "regular" noun forms, BUT
• who are progressive in their ideals is a wordy synonym for left-wing.
→ concision wins the day
→ you can argue with the author about whether "progressive" and "left-wing" are synonyms (he thinks that they are); argue away, but aim for concision
→ when in doubt, as long as meaning is not radically changed, choose the shorter option
• Eliminating this option has nothing to do with changing the meaning of option A.
Option A does not determine intended meaning.
Many of you are taught otherwise.
I would know about the latter. You keep telling me about this not-rule.
Use all five options to determine intended meaning.
The three experts below collectively possess more than forty years' of experience teaching the GMAT.
They, too, say that there is nothing special about option A.
GMATNinja , HERE, Dmitry Farber, here, and Ron Purewal, HERE.
See this post, here for a few examples of official sentences in which option A could not possibly have determined the intended meaning of the sentence.
ELIMINATE D
→ to renovate is to refurbish (e.g., an old house) or to restore (e.g., a non-functional machine)
ELIMINATE E
The best answer is A.
• NOTES
If you eliminated options D and E because they changed the meaning of option A, please read this OE again and try to understand why option A is better than options D and E.
Option D is not as concise as option A. Option E uses renovated incorrectly.
Finally, let me bust another widely taught myth: parallelism does not mean that list items are identically phrased.
Parallelism requires only that the items on the list be of matching grammatical form and play similar logical roles.
Many of you are taught a too-strict parallelism.
As long as all four items are, say, dedicated nouns, it is okay if two nouns are preceded by adjectives and the other two are not.
COMMENTS
Sumi1010 , welcome to SC Butler.
This question is a bit frustrating because option D does not contain what I would call an "obvious error."
I doubt that you will find any official questions in which two options are separated by such a slim margin.
My point in giving you this question was merely to force you to be uncomfortable.
(Again, if you relied on "don't change the meaning of option A" to eliminate option D, rethink that approach.)
Style questions make people uncomfortable. But getting even a general feel for style will help you eliminate answers whose grammar errors you might not be sure about.
People who posted before the OA reveal get kudos for bravery, whether the answer is correct or not. ("Or not" is not redundant in that sentence. Just sayin'.)
Most of you seem to be trying hard to make your posts understandable: bravo!
The better teacher you are, the better test-taker you will be. Nice work.
Project SC Butler: Sentence Correction (SC1)
THE PROMPT
Quote:
RED = CLEAR ERROR
PINK = ERROR that I couldn't code in red because two errors occur back-to-back OR a style/diction error
THE OPTIONS
Quote:
• the nouns in the list are all in "regular" (not gerund) noun form and are parallel
• "left-wing" is succinct
• I do not see any errors
Quote:
• the four nouns are not parallel: rescuing, arrests, capturing, confidence
→ compare to option A: rescues, arrests, captures, confidence
→ in general, dedicated nouns such as capture are preferred to gerunds such as capturing
In particular, a list of all dedicated nouns or all ___ING nouns is parallel, but a list of dedicated and ___ING nouns is almost never parallel
→ EXCEPTION: some nouns in English, such as sinking, do not have dedicated nouns and in that case are perfectly parallel to "dedicated" nouns
Okay: The sinking of the passenger ship Lusitania and outrage at German atrocities committed against Belgian citizens catalyzed the U.S. Congress to declare war on Germany and its allies in World War I.
→ sweeping rescuing is a train wreck of hideous prose.
In general, do not place two ___ING words next to each other.
Such placement is not flat-out wrong, but neither is it good form.
Do not memorize this bit of information.
You should be reading 20 minutes a day. See whether you ever find two ___ING words placed back to back.
If you do, you have stumbled upon an idiom (and a poorly constructed idiom at that), such as "His 'good relationships' with barbaric dictators are becoming alarming."
• renewed sense of confidence is wordier than renewed confidence. Both phrases mean the same thing. As long as meaning is clear, choose concision.
ELIMINATE B
Quote:
• this sentence is grammatical but stylistically inferior to the sentence in option A
→ in this list, the gerunds (verbING nouns) are parallel, but in standard written English and on the GMAT, the noun form (option A) is preferred to the gerund form (option C).
• sweeping rescuing is still a train wreck
• renewed feelings of confidence means the same thing as renewed confidence in option A but is not concise.
ELIMINATE C
Quote:
• this sentence, too, is grammatical, and its list, like that of A, is composed of "regular" noun forms, BUT
• who are progressive in their ideals is a wordy synonym for left-wing.
→ concision wins the day
→ you can argue with the author about whether "progressive" and "left-wing" are synonyms (he thinks that they are); argue away, but aim for concision
→ when in doubt, as long as meaning is not radically changed, choose the shorter option
• Eliminating this option has nothing to do with changing the meaning of option A.
Option A does not determine intended meaning.
Many of you are taught otherwise.
I would know about the latter. You keep telling me about this not-rule.
Use all five options to determine intended meaning.
The three experts below collectively possess more than forty years' of experience teaching the GMAT.
They, too, say that there is nothing special about option A.
GMATNinja , HERE, Dmitry Farber, here, and Ron Purewal, HERE.
See this post, here for a few examples of official sentences in which option A could not possibly have determined the intended meaning of the sentence.
ELIMINATE D
Quote:
• renovated does not work and is not as apt a term as renewed
→ to renovate is to refurbish (e.g., an old house) or to restore (e.g., a non-functional machine)
ELIMINATE E
The best answer is A.
• NOTES
If you eliminated options D and E because they changed the meaning of option A, please read this OE again and try to understand why option A is better than options D and E.
Option D is not as concise as option A. Option E uses renovated incorrectly.
Finally, let me bust another widely taught myth: parallelism does not mean that list items are identically phrased.
Parallelism requires only that the items on the list be of matching grammatical form and play similar logical roles.
Many of you are taught a too-strict parallelism.
As long as all four items are, say, dedicated nouns, it is okay if two nouns are preceded by adjectives and the other two are not.
COMMENTS
Sumi1010 , welcome to SC Butler.
This question is a bit frustrating because option D does not contain what I would call an "obvious error."
I doubt that you will find any official questions in which two options are separated by such a slim margin.
My point in giving you this question was merely to force you to be uncomfortable.
(Again, if you relied on "don't change the meaning of option A" to eliminate option D, rethink that approach.)
Style questions make people uncomfortable. But getting even a general feel for style will help you eliminate answers whose grammar errors you might not be sure about.
People who posted before the OA reveal get kudos for bravery, whether the answer is correct or not. ("Or not" is not redundant in that sentence. Just sayin'.)
Most of you seem to be trying hard to make your posts understandable: bravo!
The better teacher you are, the better test-taker you will be. Nice work.
28 Oct 2020, 00:15
Kudos
Bookmarks
Let's understand the meaning of the original sentence.
Efforts to stabilize the political and social climate of Colombia have resulted in large-scale rescues of kidnapping victims, internationally coordinated arrests of drug traffickers, pivotal captures of left-wing terrorist groups, and renewed confidence in the nation’s politicians.
The core sentence (without too many modifiers) turns to be :
Efforts have resulted in
rescues of kidnapping victims,
arrests of drug traffickers,
captures of left-wing terrorist groups, and
confidence in the nation’s politicians.
Rescues, arrests and captures are X OF noun, but confidence is simple noun.
We need to correct this parallelism.
Now, look at the choices.
A) large-scale rescues of kidnapping victims, internationally coordinated arrests of drug traffickers, pivotal captures of left-wing terrorist groups, and renewed confidence in the nation’s politicians.
Incorrect for parallelism.
B) sweeping rescuing of kidnapping victims, internationally coordinated arrests of drug traffickers, pivotal capturing of left-wing terrorist groups, and a renewed sense of confidence in the nation’s politicians.
rescuing || arrests || capturing || sense (each followed by OF)
C) sweeping rescuing of kidnapping victims, internationally coordinated arresting of drug traffickers, pivotal capturing of left-wing terrorist groups, and renewed feelings of confidence in the nation’s politicians.
Arrest (action noun) is better than Arresting(gerund form).
D) large-scale rescues of kidnapping victims, internationally coordinated arrests of drug traffickers, pivotal captures of terrorist groups who are progressive in their ideals, and renewed confidence in the nation’s politicians.
The parallelism is similar to A - rescues OF, arrests OF, captures OF and confidence. "who" for groups is incorrect.
E) sweeping rescues of kidnapping victims, internationally coordinated arrests of drug traffickers, pivotal captures of idealistically progressive terrorist groups, and renovated confidence in the nation’s politicians.
The parallelism is similar to A.
IMO B is correct.
Efforts to stabilize the political and social climate of Colombia have resulted in large-scale rescues of kidnapping victims, internationally coordinated arrests of drug traffickers, pivotal captures of left-wing terrorist groups, and renewed confidence in the nation’s politicians.
The core sentence (without too many modifiers) turns to be :
Efforts have resulted in
rescues of kidnapping victims,
arrests of drug traffickers,
captures of left-wing terrorist groups, and
confidence in the nation’s politicians.
Rescues, arrests and captures are X OF noun, but confidence is simple noun.
We need to correct this parallelism.
Now, look at the choices.
A) large-scale rescues of kidnapping victims, internationally coordinated arrests of drug traffickers, pivotal captures of left-wing terrorist groups, and renewed confidence in the nation’s politicians.
Incorrect for parallelism.
B) sweeping rescuing of kidnapping victims, internationally coordinated arrests of drug traffickers, pivotal capturing of left-wing terrorist groups, and a renewed sense of confidence in the nation’s politicians.
rescuing || arrests || capturing || sense (each followed by OF)
C) sweeping rescuing of kidnapping victims, internationally coordinated arresting of drug traffickers, pivotal capturing of left-wing terrorist groups, and renewed feelings of confidence in the nation’s politicians.
Arrest (action noun) is better than Arresting(gerund form).
D) large-scale rescues of kidnapping victims, internationally coordinated arrests of drug traffickers, pivotal captures of terrorist groups who are progressive in their ideals, and renewed confidence in the nation’s politicians.
The parallelism is similar to A - rescues OF, arrests OF, captures OF and confidence. "who" for groups is incorrect.
E) sweeping rescues of kidnapping victims, internationally coordinated arrests of drug traffickers, pivotal captures of idealistically progressive terrorist groups, and renovated confidence in the nation’s politicians.
The parallelism is similar to A.
IMO B is correct.
