Like the great navigators who first sailed around the Earth, to gather

Question

Like the great navigators who first sailed around the Earth, to gather information about its size and curvature of its surface, new observations have been made by astronomers  that show with startling directness the large-scale geometry of the universe.

(A) Like the great navigators who first sailed around the Earth, to gather information about its size and curvature of its surface, new observations have been made by astronomers

(B) Like the great navigators who first sailed around the Earth for gathering information about its size and also the curvature of its surface, new observations have been made by astronomers

(C) Similar to the great navigators who first sailed around the Earth, where they gathered information about its size and the curvature of its surface, astronomers have made new observations

(D) Like the great navigators who first sailed around the Earth gathering information about its size and the curvature of its surface, astronomers have made new observations

(E) Just as with the great navigators who first sailed around the Earth, gathering information about its size and curvature of the surface, astronomers have made new observations

yavasani · Accepted Answer

The original sentence has comparision issues. It compares the "great navigators" to "new observations" makes no sense.
So A, B are out.

In C , where incorrectly modifies "Earth"

E has an incorrect idiom "Just as with" -> Just as X, so Y

daagh · Answer

In D, there could have a comma after earth, making it clear that the navigators gather the information; But in GMAT, the correct choice need not always be the best choice but can just be the best of the choices. So D is good enough, since others have more serious problems.

Let’s see E for example; Just as with the great navigators is a prepositional modifier. For the sake of a // comparison, the second leg must also be “with astronomers” . That is the reason E is out of the reckoning

Ashwin_Mohan · Answer

straight D...right comparison between navigators and astronomers.

walker · Answer

D - right comparison. like  ,

Marcab · Answer

Sorry for being late, but aren't the commas missing in option D. Without commas, it seems that the "earth was gathering information".
I don't think that there is anything wrong with E.
Verbal experts please comment on this.

Marcab · Answer

Okay. 
So among the poor choices, choose less poor.
Btw Daagh, can you please provide me a link on all types of modifiers with examples. I can understand now that meaning issue in GMAT can be subsidized by understanding modifiers thoroughly.

aj0809 · Answer

Hi All,

Adding the explanation as provided by egmat.

Like the great navigators who first sailed around the Earth gathering information about its size
and the curvature of its surface, astronomers have made new observations that show with
startling directness the large-scale geometry of the universe. (Choice D)
After reading this one, almost all of you will say that “gathering” is a verb-ing modifier that is
placed after “Earth” and is not preceded by a comma. Hence, it must modify “Earth”. This
modification makes no sense because Earth dis not gather information. The great navigators did.
This sentence is incorrect. BUT IN REALITY, this sentence is absolutely correct. Here is why.
Structurally, “who first sailed around the Earth” is a clause. Here “who” stands for “the great
navigators”. Now together “the great navigators who first sailed around the Earth” is a big noun
phrase (refer to the mini article on noun phrases and Noun modifiers).
Many of you may argue that this entity contains a “who clause”. How can we classify as a noun
phrase. We can classify this as a noun phrase since it has a noun at its head. It is of the
construction – Noun + Clause.
The head of this big noun phrase is “the great investigators”. Now the “who” clause that
modifies “the great investigators” cannot be placed anywhere else in the sentence. This gives
“gathering”, a noun modifier, the liberty to jump over the preceding modifier and modify the
head – “the great investigators”. Hence, “gathering” in this sentence is correctly modifying “the
great investigators”.
Furthermore, logically “earth” cannot gather information.

jessiezhai · Answer

Hi guys, I chose A in this question...Is there anyone can explain why you guys did not choose A?

abrakadabra21 · Answer

Like the great navigators who first sailed around the Earth, to gather information about its size and curvature of its surface, new observations have been made by astronomers that show with startling directness the large-scale geometry of the universe.

Right comparison -- like the navigators, astonomers

(A) Like the great navigators who first sailed around the Earth, to gather information about its size and curvature of its surface,   new observations   have been made by astronomers

(B) Like the great navigators who first sailed around the Earth for gathering information about its size and also the curvature of its surface,   new observations   have been made by astronomers 
(C)   Similar   to the great navigators who first sailed around the Earth, where they gathered information about its size and the curvature of its surface, astronomers have made new observations 
(D) Like the great navigators who first sailed around the Earth gathering information about its size and the curvature of its surface, astronomers have made new observations 
(E) Just as   with   the great navigators who first sailed around the Earth, gathering information about its size and curvature of the surface, astronomers have made new observations

anairamitch1804 · Answer

Here the comparison is made between Navigators and Astronomers ( Note the comparison is made between 2 nouns and not on their respective actions)

Hence It is preferred to use Like X <>, <Y>

Just by this rule, we can eliminate A,B,C and E

Moreover

Just as X, So Y is the correct Idiom E is out
B and A use wrong comparisons between navigators and observations

Choice C use of relative pronoun 'where' to refer to Earth makes no sense besides Similar does not work in the expression:

Similar to John, Mary enjoys running.
Like John, Mary enjoys running.

Grammatically, this is because similar is an adjective used to describe a noun. Like is a preposition, used to compare nouns.
Hence D.

thangvietnam · Answer

"like " in choice d is a preposition and is used to show that the 2 subjects do the same action. 
"similar to" is an adjective. adjactive phrase at the begining of a sentence can work as an adverb for the whole sentence .
aware of you, I dont want to go with you
adjective phrase at the beginning of the sentence work ad adverb and show a cause of the main sentence. so, clearly , "similar to" can not logically show a cause of the main clause.

the serious problem with choice C is " comma+where " . comma+which clause show a characteristic of the preceding noun. comma+where show a characteristic of the earth. one of characteristics of the earth is that some persons gather information on it. this is not logical meaning. the logical meaning is that some persons go around the earth , gathering information

wo, it is hard to realize the meaning error because we need to properly understand the meaning of the sentence.

jabhatta2 · Answer

Hi  GMATNinja  - how would you eliminate C and eliminate E in this case ?

jabhatta2 · Answer

Hi  GMATGuruNY  - i thought D was wrong because  gathering   (verb'ing)  is modifying   Earth   and   Earth    by itself cannot be gathering information about its size and the curvature of its surface

Where is the gap in the logic ?

GMATGuruNY · Answer

A VERBing modifier serving as an ADJECTIVE often serves an ADVERBIAL function as well.
 Sitting on a park bench, John ate his lunch. 
Here,  sitting  serves as an adjective modifying  John .
But  sitting  is not John's GENERAL state-of-being.
Rather,  sitting  indicates John's state of being as he ATE his lunch.
In this sense,  sitting  serves as an adverb, indicating HOW John ATE his lunch.

In the SC above,  gathering  serves similar dual functions: it describes the navigators' state-of-being (an adjectival function) as they SAILED (thereby serving to indicate HOW the navigators sailed, an adverbial function).

What's unusual here is that the VERBing modifier refers to the subject of the preceding relative clause but is not separated from the clause by a comma.
Here, the construction works because the noun that ends the relative clause --  the Earth  -- is already FULLY RESTRICTED.
There is only ONE EARTH; there are not different types of THE Earth.
Since  the Earth  does not warrant further modification, it's clear that the modifier that follows  the Earth  --  gathering  -- refers NOT to the Earth but to the nearest eligible noun that PRECEDES the Earth:  the navigators .

If the relative clause here ended with a noun that COULD be further modified, the construction would not be viable.
Consider the following:
 Like the great navigators who first sailed across an ocean gathering information... 
Here, AN OCEAN is not fully restricted.
There are many types of oceans.
Since  an ocean  CAN be further modified, it seems as though  gathering  is modifying  an ocean , implying that AN OCEAN is gathering information -- a distortion of the intended meaning.

GMATNinja · Answer

Comparing (C) and (D), the biggest difference comes in the noun modifier that describes "great navigators": By using a "where" clause, (C) literally indicates that the Earth is where the navigators gathered information about the Earth's size and the curvature of the Earth's surface. I guess to clarify that the navigators aren't on some other planet?

At best, it seems unnecessary to use a "where" clause to specify where the gathering of information happened. At worst, (C) seems to imply that these navigators don't always hang out on the Earth -- rather, they sailed around the Earth, gathered some information, and then rowed their way to the next planet.

On the other hand, (D) clearly indicates that the gathering of information happened WHILE those great navigators were first sailing around the Earth, providing the reader with a useful (and logical) piece of additional context. (C) isn't terrible, but the modifiers make much more sense in (D). The only other difference is that (C) uses "similar to" instead of "like," and that's certainly not a great reason to choose (C) over (D). So, comparing these two options, (D) is the winner. Now let's compare (D) and (E). First, we see a minor difference in the parallel list: There's really only one logical way to interpret the parallelism: "gathering information about (1) size and (2) the curvature of surface" - makes perfect sense. In (E), the reader has to choose between two not-so-great interpretations: Option 1: "gathering information about its (1) size and (2) curvature of the surface" - In this case, the its ( the Earth's ) is shared by both items in the list. That means we have (2) the Earth's ] curvature of the surface. Compare that to (D), where we had "the curvature of surface." It makes sense to refer to the Earth's surface because the surface is something that the Earth has . It makes less sense to refer to the Earth's curvature of the surface because the Earth doesn't directly have the curvature . Instead, the Earth has a surface , and that surface has a curvature . So if we go with this interpretation, we have a vote for (D) over (E). Option 2: "gathering information about (1) its size and (2) curvature of the surface." In this case, the its ( the Earth's ) is NOT shared. So does that mean we are referring to the Earth's size but to some other curvature of the surface that is NOT the Earth's? In (D), on the other hand, it's clear that we are talking about (1) the Earth's size and (2) "the curvature of the Earth's surface." Either way, we have a vote against (E) -- and the fact that we even have multiple ways to interpret the parallelism in (E) is, in itself, another little reason to prefer (D) over (E). The only other difference is that (E) uses "just as with" instead of "like." We are comparing two nouns (navigators and astronomers), so "like" is perfectly appropriate. And I don't see any reason why we'd want to use "as with" instead of the straightforward "like" for the comparison of these two nouns. In any case, the "just as with" is certainly not a vote in favor of (E), so (D) is still the best choice. I hope that helps!

harish555 · Answer

Prefer ‘like’ to ‘similar to’ . 
Earth , where- error. Where Has to be used to specify any location . Earth is a planet and which is the right referent to it. Based on this, we can eliminate D

waytowharton · Answer

KarishmaB

Hi madam,

I have a doubt in the correct answer D. Isn’t there modifier error in this option? “gathering information” is placed next to noun (Earth), and it seems that this modifier is modifying Earth. Shouldn’t there be a comma after Earth?

I want to learn from you how to react in exam, if i face similar situation in exam in which i am finding all options incorrect. I have my exam on 31'Oct, and advice from you would be really very helpful.

Thanks in advance!

jabhatta2 · Answer

Hi  RonTargetTestPrep   AnthonyRitz   DmitryFarber   ReedArnoldMPREP

I dont see why people are saying  Where = Earth  is wrong in option C 
  #1. Earth is a location, so "Where" works in that respect  
 #2. Meaning wise also "where" makes sense - Earth is indeed the  place  where the navigators gathered information about X and Y. Where else would navigators be located when they gathered information about X and Y ?  On Earth obviously     
 #3. Furthermore, The entire phrase " where they gathered information about x and y " is between comma's, making this phrase an  non-essential modifier . This non-essential modifier can be dropped and the sentence still makes sense 
 #4. The non-essential phrase gives "additional information" about Earth which happens to be true obviously.

Analogy :

Where I met plenty of people  works per my understanding in my analogy. 
 Where I met plenty of people  gives additional information about "Earth"

--------------------------------------------

Thoughts ?

KarishmaB · Answer

GMAT doesn't test punctuation as such and it does tend to use comma a lot less than many of us usually do. So the error that a comma is missing is usually one that I would ignore. Option (D) is the best of the lot.

Like the great navigators who first sailed around the Earth, to gather

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Like the great navigators who first sailed around the Earth, to gather

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