The Parthenon was a church from 1204 until 1456, when Athens

Question

The Official Guide for GMAT Review, 11th Edition, 2005

Practice Question
Question No.: SC 79
Page: 650

The Parthenon was a church from 1204 until 1456, when Athens was taken by General Mohammed the Conqueror, the Turkish sultan, who established a mosque in the building and used the Acropolis as a fortress.

(A) who established a mosque in the building and used the Acropolis as

(B) who, establishing a mosque in the building, used the Acropolis like

(C) who, when he had established a mosque in the building, used the Acropolis like

(D) who had established a mosque in the building, using the Acropolis to be

(E) establishing a mosque in the building and using the Acropolis as

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Explination : https://gmatsentencecorrection.blogspot ... %20vs%20as

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Official Answer

A

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egmat · Accepted Answer

Hi Abid, Thanks for posting your doubt here. :-)

The Comma + Verb-ing modifier modifies the action in the preceding clause. This preceding clause can be an Independent or a Dependent Clause. Ans also, action denoted by the Comma + Verb-ing modifier must make sense with the Subject of the action modified by this modifier. In this sentence, the cause preceding the Comma + Verb-ing Modifiers "establishing..." and "using..." is "when Athens was taken by General... So, here the action these modifiers modify is "was taken". The Subject of this modified action is "Athens". Hence, this modification is illogical because Athens did not do any of the two actions denoted by the Comma + Verb-ing Modifiers here. These actions were actually performed by the General. Choice A is the clear winner here that conveys that meaning perfectly. For more details on the correct use Comma + Verb-ing modifiers, please read the following article: usage-of-verb-ing-modifiers-135220.html Hope this helps. :-)

Thanks Shraddha

GMATNinja · Answer

Ah, I think I see the issue. You're thinking about "like" and "as" when those words are used as comparisons. If you're comparing two nouns ("Like a pig, Charlie eats with tremendous enthusiasm"), you'd want to use "like"; if you're comparing two clauses ("Just as pigs are voracious eaters, Charlie also can consume his entire body weight in a single trip to the buffet"), you'll want to use "as".

Trouble is, this isn't a comparison at all! In the phrase "the Turkish sultan... used the Acropolis  as  a fortress", we're not trying to compare "the Acropolis" with "a fortress" -- the Acropolis is simply put to use  as  a fortress. The phrase "used as" just indicates the building's function. So there's no need to even worry about the distinction between "like" and "as", since there is no comparison taking place.

I hope this helps!

getmba · Answer

A is correct. 
You don’t even need to stress on  as  vs  like  in this question as all the answer choices other than A are wrong.

Like means “similar to” or “in a manner similar to”.

(B) who, establishing a mosque in the building, used the Acropolis like –   establishing  and  used  not parallel 
(C) who, when he had established a mosque in the building, used the Acropolis like –  we don’t need  when  and  past perfect  here. Moreover  as  should be used instead of  like .

D and E are way too off.

TraderAK · Answer

Answer A

"as" is correct in comparison to "like" and "to be". So, B, C and D are out.

Out of A and E, A seems to be logical and correct.

abid1986 · Answer

Hi,
Comma + verbing modifies preceding independent clause,then how establishing and using is modifying athens,which is actually a dependent clause.

Thanks
Abid

GGMU · Answer

The Parthenon was a church from 1204 until 1456, when Athens was taken by General Mohammed the Conqueror, the Turkish sultan, who established a mosque in the building and used the Acropolis as a fortress.

(A) who established a mosque in the building and used the Acropolis as

(B) who,  establishing  a mosque in the building,  used  the Acropolis like  Paralelism

(C) who, when  he had established  a mosque in the building,  used  the Acropolis like  Paralelism
 
(D) who  had established  a mosque in the building,  using  the Acropolis to be  Paralelism

(E)  establishing  a mosque in the building and using the Acropolis as  Verb is required

saurabh9gupta · Answer

GMATNinja   mikemcgarry  - can you please explain this. I think As + clause is the correct usage and Like + noun is also the correct usage and so A and E would be wrong

egmat · Answer

Hello saurabh9gupta , Although your question is not for me, I would like to help you with this one.

The structure as + clause is used when the sentence intends to present comparison. But this official sentence does not intend to present any comparison. It intends to say that the Turkish Sultan used the Acropolis itself as a fortress . The Acropolis has not been compared with a fortress. Since the sentence intends to present the role of Acropolis as a fortress, use of as + a fortress (a noun entity) is absolutely correct. It is very important that you understand the intended meaning of the sentence to be able to decide whether the sentence intends to present comparison or function and hence, use the correct structure accordingly. Hope this helps.

Thanks. Shraddha

cantaffordname · Answer

This is example of parallelism. also, the sentence is in past tense, so parallelism list needs to have past tense of verb. (in some case, parallelism can go have mix match of tense but those are rare cases and meaning is more important)

Errors are highlighted in Bold

The Parthenon was a church from 1204 until 1456, when Athens was taken by General Mohammed the Conqueror, the Turkish sultan,  who established a mosque in the building and used the Acropolis as  a fortress.

(A) who established a mosque in the building and used the Acropolis as - Correct, since established and used are parallel.

(B) who,  establishing  a mosque in the building,  used  the Acropolis like

(C) who, when he  had established  a mosque in the building,  used  the Acropolis like - No sequence, hence use of past perfect tense is wrong.

(D) who  had established  a mosque in the building,  using  the Acropolis to be

(E)  establishing  a mosque in the  building  and using the Acropolis as - No need of present perfect tense

egmat · Answer

Hello cantaffordname , A very good analysis of the problem, I must say. Keep up the excellent work.

I would like to add to your analysis the error about the usage of like in Choices B & C . The word like is used to present either the comparison or the examples. But this sentence intends to convey that the Acropolis itself was used as a fortress. It means that the Acropolis = fortress. Since the Acropolis functioned or acted as a fortress , the sentence must use as to present this intended function as we see in the correct answer choice. Usage of to be is incorrect in Choice D for the same reason. Thanks.

Shraddha

rocky620 · Answer

Hi  egmat ,

Mam, can you elaborate the problem in "Option B"

(B) who, establishing a mosque in the building, used the Acropolis like

My thought process is 
1. Since who is in between commas  ,who,  it is correctly modifying the General.
2.  establishing a mosque in the building, used the Acropolis like  shows cause and effect in which  establishing  phrase is the cause for the  used  clause.
3.  Used  modifies the General

Hence gives the intended meaning.

Ahmed9955 · Answer

Hi @e-gmat,

in choice E, will 'establishing' not modify General Mohammed ?
as 'the Turkish sultan' is a non essential modifier and is within a comma pair. Therefore, there's no comma after General Mohammed The conqueror

Regards,
Ahmed

GKomoku · Answer

Dear Moderators  GMATNinja   GMATNinja Two could you please remove the tag for "comparison" seems this is the major issue for confusion

Deadpool3 · Answer

The Parthenon was a church from 1204 until 1456, when Athens was taken by General Mohammed the Conqueror, the Turkish sultan,  who established a mosque in the building and used the Acropolis as a fortress.

(A) who established a mosque in the building and used the Acropolis as.  -> Correct.  Who modifies sultan and has verb established and used. "as" is used to describe the function/role acropolis did.

(B) who, establishing a mosque in the building, used the Acropolis  like  -> Incorrect. "like" should not be used to describe the function/role acropolis did.

(C) who, when he  had established  a mosque in the building, used the Acropolis  like  -> Incorrect. had established renders the sequence of the events illogical. It depicts that mosque was established first, then athen was taken by sultan.

(D) who  had established  a mosque in the building, using the Acropolis  to be  -> Incorrect. same error of option "C". "Using to be" is unidiomatic

(E) establishing a mosque in the building and using the Acropolis as  -> Incorrect.  This complete sentence is acting as a verbing modifier for the verb of the previous dependent clause, but does not makes sense with the subject of the clause.

amols · Answer

GMATBusters

saby1410 · Answer

why usage of  to be  is wrong

ExpertsGlobal5 · Answer

Hello  saby1410 ,

Having gone through the question and your query, we believe we can help resolve your doubt.

As mentioned by  egmat  above, the use of "as" is most appropriate here, as the sentence conveys that "the Acropolis" played the role of "a fortress"; remember, the idiom "A as B" conveys that A plays the role of B.

Further, the use of the infinitive verb form ("to + base form of verb" - "to + be" in Option D) also leads to a somewhat incoherent meaning, as the infinitive verb form is the preferred construction for referring to the purpose or intent of action; thus, its use here seems to imply that "General Mohammed the Conqueror" used "the Acropolis" for the purpose of it being a "fortress".

We hope this helps.
All the best!
Experts' Global Team

Vatsal7794 · Answer

Hi Experts

GMATNinja   VeritasKarishma   EducationAisle   ChrisLele   mikemcgarry   AjiteshArun   egmat   sayantanc2k   RonPurewal   DmitryFarber   MagooshExpert   avigutman   EMPOWERgmatVerbal   MartyTargetTestPrep   ExpertsGlobal5   IanStewart 
other experts  AnthonyRitz

This is the second time i am answering this question and still marked wrong option

In option a " who established a mosque in the building and used the Acropolis as a fortres s" Is a clause right?

Somewhere I read if a pronoun starts the clause then Pronoun refers to the subject of the main clause(So subject would be either Athens or The Parthenon) Rejected A. 
One more reason
 when Athens was taken by General Mohammed the Conqueror, the Turkish sultan  is first clause (Dependent clause)

, who established a mosque in the building and used the Acropolis as a fortress  is second clause (dependent clause) . These are just connected by comma - So two dependent clause can be connected by comma?

Please answer all the above queries.

Thanks

MartyTargetTestPrep · Answer

Yes, it's a relative clause.

Your understanding is incorrect. The relative pronoun at the beginning of a relative clause does not have to refer to the subject of the main clause.

It's not quite correct to say that the relative clause "who established a mosque ..." is connected to the preceding clause by a comma. The relative clause plays a role  within  the clause "when Athens was taken by General Mohammed the Conqueror ...." The relative clause "who established a mosque ..." is a modifier.

Here's another example:

John met the man who had invented the blender.

The relative clause "who had invented the blender" plays a role within the clause "John met ...."

The Parthenon was a church from 1204 until 1456, when Athens

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GMAT Sentence Correction (SC - EA only) Questions

The Parthenon was a church from 1204 until 1456, when Athens

Prep Toolkit

615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

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