Deprived of his witty and loyal muse, Dillon McKay, which he

Question

Deprived of his witty and loyal muse, Dillon McKay, which he defiantly relied on for direction and inspiration , lost the ability to compose the moving musical pieces that had made him famous the world over.

(A) Deprived of his witty and loyal muse, Dillon McKay, which he defiantly relied on for direction and inspiration

(B) Deprived of his witty and loyal muse, Dillon McKay, defiantly relying on for direction and inspiration

(C) Dillon McKay, deprived of his witty and loyal muse, who he had defiantly relied on for direction and inspiration

(D) Deprived of his witty and loyal muse, which he had defiantly relied on for direction and inspiration, Dillon McKay

(E) Deprived of his witty and loyal muse, who he had defiantly relied on for direction and inspiration, Dillon McKay

Please explain your answer.
Thanks!

tarek99 · Answer

wrong. Try again

icandy · Answer

D is correct. Correctly refers to wit and muse using which. Wit and muse are some thing DM possessed, which is correct.

Take out the dependent clause and read the sentence. it reads just fine.

Also, we have two events here. DM lost his ability (past tense) and DM relied on W & M ( event started before DM lost his ability) needs past perfect.

amitdgr · Answer

I pick E <img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_confused.gif" alt=":?" title="Confused" />

aMante · Answer

Deprived of his witty and loyal muse, Dillon McKay, which he defiantly relied on for direction and inspiration, lost the ability to compose the moving musical pieces that had made him famous the world over.

(A) Deprived of his witty and loyal muse, Dillon McKay,  which  he defiantly relied on for direction and inspiration -> which should not follow the person

(B) Deprived of his witty and loyal muse, Dillon McKay, defiantly relying on for direction and inspiration

(C) Dillon McKay, deprived of his witty and loyal muse,  who  he had defiantly relied on for direction and inspiration -> who should not follow the thing

(D) Deprived of his witty and loyal muse,  which  he had defiantly relied on for direction and inspiration, Dillon McKay -> which follows muse .. correct

(E) Deprived of his witty and loyal muse,  who  he had defiantly relied on for direction and inspiration, Dillon McKay -> who should not follow the thing

I have D and B left and D sound better.
B is not good. There are 2 subjunctives before and after 'Dillon McKay'. No good for this structure.
So I picked D.

amitdgr · Answer

Did you mean 2 modifiers ? subjunctive is a completely different thing aMante .....

ventivish · Answer

Sentence must end with Dillon McKay because the non underlines part of the sentence begins with 'lost' which is a noun modifier because it describes Dillon and must therefore touch 'Dillon McKay'. On this basis I would eliminate A,B,C.

Since 'which' is a non essential modifier and in this case we require an essential modifier, I would choose E.'Who' can be an essential or nonessential modifier.And muse in this case I believe refers to a person.

Bidisha · Answer

I think (D) is correct.

This question is 4 months old. Would it be too soon to post the OA ?

dwivedys · Answer

I would have chosen E because MUSE is not an object but a person - so we need the relative pronoun who/whom. I believe WHOM would have been more appropriate in this case. Since E has WHO I am ruling it out.

So D is the only other choice.

Please let us also know the source of this question. Pretty Nice. +1 to you for that.

tarek99 · Answer

OA is E. How?

spiridon · Answer

Maybe because the muse is a person?

whats the source of this q? is it official review or companies

hanumayamma · Answer

Sentence has modifier issue

(A) Deprived of his witty and loyal muse, Dillon McKay, which he defiantly relied on for direction and inspiration –  Which logically intended to modify witty and loyal muse but instead modified Dillon McKay – eliminate it ]

(B) Deprived of his witty and loyal muse, Dillon McKay, defiantly relying on for direction and inspiration  defiantly relying needs to modify witty and loyal muse not Dillon McKay – eliminate it]

(C) Dillon McKay, deprived of his witty and loyal muse, who he had defiantly relied on for direction and inspiration   ]

(D) Deprived of his witty and loyal muse, which he had defiantly relied on for direction and inspiration, Dillon McKay

(E) Deprived of his witty and loyal muse, who he had defiantly relied on for direction and inspiration, Dillon McKay  who modifies people not attributes – eliminate it ]

Answer: D

stallone · Answer

OA shud be D .. E is not possible

Defination of Muse :https://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=muse

Deprived of his witty and loyal muse, Dillon McKay, which he defiantly relied on for direction and inspiration, lost the ability to compose the moving musical pieces that had made him famous the world over.

(A) Deprived of his witty and loyal muse, Dillon McKay,  which  he defiantly relied on for direction and inspiration (which points to Dallen and distorts the meaning )

(B) Deprived of his witty and loyal muse, Dillon McKay, defiantly relying on for direction and inspiration (here though the construction sounds a bit awkward at first sight but is not incorrect (as per me) ; defiantly relying correctly modifies Dillion Mckay BUT it changes the original meaning of the sentence.)

(C) Dillon McKay, deprived of his witty and loyal muse,  who  he had defiantly relied on for direction and inspiration (muse is NOT a person/group so who is wrong)

(D) Deprived of his witty and loyal muse,  which  he had defiantly relied on for direction and inspiration, Dillon McKay (which correctly modifies the Noun just before it )

(E) Deprived of his witty and loyal muse,  who  he had defiantly relied on for direction and inspiration, Dillon McKay (same as C )

GMAT TIGER · Answer

Its between D and E and I go with D.

For me "muse, which he had ..................." is better than "muse, who he had defiantly..........".

amitdgr · Answer

can an attribute/thing be loyal and witty ?

I believe "who" refers to the muse .... it cant be which !!

tarek99 · Answer

or may be the "who" in option E is referring to "Dillon McKay"? May be the "who" is not referring to muse. Is such a construction possible? If so, then i've learned something new here.

Av · Answer

Noun uses of "muse," as described by dictionary.com

n.
Greek Mythology Any of the nine daughters of Mnemosyne and Zeus, each of whom presided over a different art or science.
muse
A guiding spirit.
A source of inspiration.
muse A poet.

In my opinion, the use of "loyal" in the original sentence implies that the muse is a person/thing.

Based upon this assessment, I agree with the OA. E is the correct answer.

This is definitely a difficult question though

dwivedys · Answer

Tarek - I have issue in believing that WHO in E can refer to DM. It's impossible.

Also, does anybody have any opinion on the usage of WHO versus WHOM in E? Don't you guys think that it should be WHOM and not WHO?

For example what's correct -

He has always been someone WHOM (or WHO) I have always looked up to?

Deprived of my maidservant, whom (or who) i have always counted on, I had a hard time doing the dishes.

I believe the usage calls for WHOM (Objective case of the pronoun) because it's the recipient of the intended action and NOT the doer.

Comments?

Also - could you share the source of this question and any OA if you have it.

amitdgr · Answer

I agree with dwivedys... whom is better usage .... But since our answer choices don't have it, we choose the option which has who .... No which for people please ...... Yes muse has to be a person .... Can an object be loyal or witty ???

grumpyoldman · Answer

Where the heck did this question come from? Only one answer has a chance of being right, and even that one is highly questionable.

(D) is the one which has a chance of being right. It is questionable because a muse is a person, or at least a personality, and so "which" should be "whom". Weren't the Muses originally personalities in the Greek myths? I can sort-of accept D, but only by pretending that a muse is some kind of inanimate or non-personal critter.

(E) is wrong because "who" is the object of the verb-particle combination "rely on", and so has to be "whom".

The other three answer choices aren't fooling anyone.

Deprived of his witty and loyal muse, Dillon McKay, which he

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