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We were surprised by the peculiarity of his behavior. 02 May 2007, 02:37
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We were surprised by the peculiarity of his behavior.

(A) We were surprised by the peculiarity of his behavior.

(B) We were surprised by his peculiar behavior.

(C) We were surprised at the peculiarity of his behavior.

(D) We were surprised by the fact that he behaved in such a peculiar way.

(E) We were surprised at his peculiar behavior.

Please answer with logic.



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We were surprised by the peculiarity of his behavior. 02 May 2007, 03:05
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Answer E. "surprised at" is idiomatic and E is shorter than C.
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sang5650
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We were surprised by the peculiarity of his behavior. 31 Mar 2010, 16:19
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F75
Answer E. "surprised at" is idiomatic and E is shorter than C.
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why is Surprised by the wrong idiom here.

to me B looks more succinct.
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We were surprised by the peculiarity of his behavior. 31 Mar 2010, 18:03
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sang5650
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Answer E. "surprised at" is idiomatic and E is shorter than C.
why is Surprised by the wrong idiom here.

to me B looks more succinct.
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You need to follow the meaning of the sentence my friend.

"Surprised at" changes the meaning entirely. "surprised by" maintains that peculiar behavior was actually surprising.
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We were surprised by the peculiarity of his behavior. 31 Mar 2010, 18:32
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BarneyStinson
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Answer E. "surprised at" is idiomatic and E is shorter than C.
why is Surprised by the wrong idiom here.

to me B looks more succinct.

You need to follow the meaning of the sentence my friend.

"Surprised at" changes the meaning entirely. "surprised by" maintains that peculiar behavior was actually surprising.
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Yeah thats exactly my point.

Here the answer is E not B.
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We were surprised by the peculiarity of his behavior. 09 Apr 2010, 03:14
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E
"surprised at" is the correct idiomatic use here.
I am not sure if "surprised by" is completely unidiomatic, for example, Even President Karzai looks surprised by President Obama's visit (NYT).
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We were surprised by the peculiarity of his behavior. 09 Apr 2010, 03:48
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In the current context the difference between B and E is very subtle

'surprised at' suggests something has happened contrary to the way you expected, 'surprised by' suggests something you were not expecting at all.

'We were surprised at his peculiar behavior, we never expected him to lie'
'We were surprised by his peculiar behavior, he took us out for a dinner treat'

they are largely interchangeable but the expression 'to be surprised at someone' - often expressing disappointment with their behavior - is usually always with 'at' rather than 'by'.

There has to be more to the sentence to finalize one of the options.
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We were surprised by the peculiarity of his behavior. 09 Apr 2010, 13:29
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Hey All,

Just wanted to weigh in, because this is WEIRD. I wonder if the person who posted this wrote it himself...

Many things make it weird. First of all, none of the answer choices have a grammatical issue. This would NEVER happen. All of these are grammatically correct, but some are more concise than others. And I agree with sh00nya that the difference between "surprised by" and "surprised at" is too subtle to ever be the central point of a GMAT question. Particularly because this sentence is provides no context to decide between them.

Now, if the sentence said, "We were surprised AT his jumping out of the closet with a machete", we might have a better idea what was wrong (though it still would never cut it as a GMAT question), because probably you'd be more actively surprised BY such an event than AT it.

Either way, this is a silly distinction, and an entirely ridiculous question.

-t



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