The fear of rabies is well founded; few people are known to recover fr

Question

The fear of rabies is well founded;  few people are known to recover from the disease after the appearance of the clinical symptoms.

(A) few people are known to recover from the disease after the appearance of the clinical symptoms.
(B) few people are known to have recovered from the disease once the clinical symptoms have appeared
(C) there are few known people who have recovered from the disease once the clinical symptoms have appeared
(D) after the clinical symptoms appear,there are few known people who have recovered from the disease 
(E) recovery from the disease is known for only a few people after the clinical symptoms appear

TommyWallach · Accepted Answer

Hey All,

I got Private Messaged to answer this question, and indeed, the discussion has been long and fruitful! What fun!

The fear of rabies is well founded; few people are known to recover from the disease after the appearance of the clinical symptoms.

(A)few people are known to recover from the disease after the appearance of the clinical symptoms.
PROBLEM: This question is a classic concision trap. The hope is that you'll pick A, thinking that A and B are the same and this one is shorter. But this is not idiomatic. We say "SUBJECT is known TO HAVE RECOVERED" not "SUBJECT is known TO RECOVER." We wouldn't say he is "known to eat twenty apples". The present tense infinitive (to eat) is wrong. Correct is that "I am known to have eaten 20 apples", which correctly uses the present perfect to imply this is what we've known from the past into the present.

Also, "after" and "once" have slightly different meanings. "I'm going to the store after lunch" implies that SOMETIME after lunch, I'll go to the store. "I'm going to the store once I've eaten lunch" implies that there is a causal relationship between the eating and the going to the store, that eating lunch is the threshold. That's what we want here, because the symptoms are the threshold.

(B)few people are known to have recovered from the disease once the clinical symptoms have appeared
ANSWER: Awesome.

(C)there are few known people who have recovered from the disease once the clinical symptoms have appeared
PROBLEM: Adjective "known" is now modifying "people", which is silly.

(D)after the clinical symptoms appear,there are few known people who have recovered from the disease
PROBLEM: Same as above, and the placement of the prep phrase "after..." is odd.

(E)recovery from the disease is known for only a few people after the clinical symptoms appear 
PROBLEM: "Known for only a few people" doesn't make any sense. It's not that the recovery isn't known, but that few people are known to have recovered.

Hope that helps! The answer is definitely B.

-t

haas_mba07 · Answer

(B)few people are known to have recovered from the disease once the clinical symptoms have appeared


The key why A is not correct is the existence of " found ed  " which means the reasons why the fear exists is based on the observations in the past. The only option which reconciles that is one which has " have recovered " . 
 The rest is eliminated by the 3C's : concise, correct, clarity.


 To further elaborate, the fear   "is"   well founded, but the fear is again based on the experience of the past.. i.e. need to look in the past for experience, which is most people who have symptoms appear don't recover.

sdrandom1 · Answer

Answer is clearly B

The fear of rabies is well founded; few people are known to recover from the disease after the appearance of the clinical symptoms.

(A) few people are known to recover from the disease after the appearance of the clinical symptoms -  "after the appearance of" is not idiomatic. Also the word 'after' does not conver what the author intends to say. 
(B) few people are known to have recovered from the disease once the clinical symptoms have appeared  - idiomatic and clearly conveys the author's point 
(C) there are few  known people  who have recovered from the disease once the clinical symptoms have appeared -  'known' is wrongly used here....the author intends to say that few people are known to recover, not few 'known' people 
(D) after the clinical symptoms appear, there are few known people who have recovered from the disease -  same explanation as C 
(E) recovery from the disease is known for only a few people after the clinical symptoms appear -  'recovery is know' unidiomatic

sag · Answer

I was left between B or C as both should be Independent Clauses..

But C is having  few known people  which changes the meaning. So the Ans is B..

nusmavrik · Answer

Yep C is indeed a change of meaning.

sjayasa · Answer

Hi serhio,
Can you please clarify? I think it is A, too. But I am not very sure why B is incorrect.

In option A, "..to recover" seems correct because it is a fact and is still true. The usage of "...to have recovered" in option B seems to refer to events in the past.
Also in B, "once" is used rather than "after" (I read somewhere that "after" is preferable). Additionally, "have appeared" should be simple past "appeared".

nusmavrik · Answer

2 reasons I feel A is wrong

1. Fear is well founded. Its based upon the past.
2. (A) few people are known to recover from the disease ---> You must exclude the people who have the symptoms now and still recovering – to make such a statement.

people are sampled from the  past   not the  present . "have recovered from the disease" looks alright.

amma4u · Answer

IMO "B"

a) changes the context when use "recover"

b. few people are known to have recovered from the disease once the clinical symptoms have appeared - "good"
c. there are few known people who have recovered from the disease once the clinical symptoms have appeared - here "known people" says the writer knows the pple who have recovered
d. after the clinical symptoms appear, there are few known people who have recovered from the disease - ditto.
e. recovery from the disease is known for only a few people after the clinical symptoms appear - this stmt say "few pple know the recovery"

TehJay · Answer

I narrowed it down to (A) or (B) and went with (A) because (B) seems needlessly wordy and clunky.

shrouded1 · Answer

I am quoting from another source I found on a google search :

"I still feel B is the right choice. The sentence begins with a statement that the fear of rabies is well founded and the second part is trying to get evidence from past to substantiate why the fear if rabies is well founded - namely very few people are known to have recovered once the symptoms have fully appeared.

Option A makes it sound like there is a fixed set of people who are well known for their ability to recover from rabies (as if they do it multiple times just to prove their ability). e.g Spartans were known warriors.
Somehow the more i look at A, the more the message being conveyed by A gets unclear "

Other posts in the same forum claim that the OA is (b)

pqhai · Answer

IMO, B is correct.

This question tests us about   "perfect infinitive - TO HAVE + PAST PARTICIPLE" vs "infinitive - TO + VERB"  
Perfect infinitive mentions an action that happened in the past and still has its effect in present. However, infinitive mentions an action that happens in present or will happen, but DID NOT happen in the past.

For example:   Mr. John is known  to have worked  for IBM since 1990.  
What if we use a more concise sentence:  Mr. John is known  to work  for IBM. 
The difference is the first sentence mentions that Mr. John started working for IBM in 1990 and he still works the the company
The second sentence mentions that Mr. John is going to work for IBM. it changes the intended meaning.

When you see the PERFECT INFINITIVE, please make sure you checked the time of an action.  If it happened in the past and still bear an effect in present ==> Perfect infinitive is correct,  even the sentence is longer and not concise.

Back to the question, the first part is "The fear of rabies is well  founded"  ==> it provides the evidence that the action happened in the past. Clearly, in the second part, we cannot use infinitive-to recover. If there is no first part, the second part only  maybe  correct.

Between A & B, A is wrong for reason above. B is correct.

PS:  You will see a lot of this structure - To have + P.P in real GMAT, because  GMAT hopes you will pick a more concise sentence and get it wrong .

Hope it helps.

pqhai · Answer

Tough and good question, IMO.

Before attack this question, there are some basic grammars we need to call in mind.

GRAMMARS:

1. FEW vs. A FEW? 
- Few = not enough
- A few = small number

2. IDIOM: Known people OR people are know to ...... 
- Correct one is: "known to do something............."

3. The rule of thumb: V-A-N 
- Verb > Adjective > Noun.
GMAT prefers the order Verb (no 1), Adjective (no 2) and Noun (no 3). If you can use verb, use it instead of adjective or noun.

ANSWER:

(A) few people are known to recover from the disease after the appearance of the clinical symptoms
 Wrong.  The structure is not as good as in B because (1) "the appearance" is noun form, thus it does not convey good meaning as verb form - "appear" does; (2) B has parallelism structure: "have recovered"// "have appeared".

(B) few people are known to  have recovered  from the disease once the clinical symptoms  have appeared 
  Correct.   As explained above.

(C) there are few known people who have recovered from the disease once the clinical symptoms have appeared
 Wrong.  We want to convey "a small number of people" NOT "not enough people", thus "few people" is absolutely wrong. The correct structure is "there are  A FEW  people".

(D) after the clinical symptoms appear, there are few known people who have recovered from the disease
 Wrong.  Same error as in C. We have to add "a" before "few people".

(E) recovery from the disease is known for only a few people after the clinical symptoms appear
 Wrong.  Awkward structure. E changes main subject from "people" to "recovery".

Hope my post helps you to remind some basic grammars and "favorite" rules of GMAT.

Enjoy!

DmitryFarberMPrep · Answer

mdacosta , here you go:

C) The use of "known people" is problematic here. It seems to be saying that of all "known people" in the world, there are few who have recovered. Our focus should be on whether the recovery (not the people) is known.

D) This repeats the problem in C, but makes it worse by misplacing the end modifier at the beginning. Now we're saying that this only the case "after symptoms appear." In other words, once symptoms appear (in us, perhaps?), there are no longer many people who have recovered.

E) The phrase "recovery . . . is known for only a few people" just doesn't work. We can't "know recovery" for people. Additionally, we have modifier trouble again. Again, it sounds like "after the clinical symptoms appear" is modifying  when we know  about these cases.

A good general takeaway from these cases is that while we have some freedom in where we place adverbial modifiers (unlike noun modifiers, they don't have to touch the thing they're modifying), we still need to be very careful with their placement. Structure and position can make a big difference in how we interpret the meaning of these modifiers, and we often end up with nonsense!

Bombsante · Answer

The fear of rabies is well founded;  few people are known to recover from the disease after the appearance of the clinical symptoms.

Meaning analysis: Since the underlined part of the sentence comes after a ; it becomes an independent clause. In this underlined clause the sentence intends to say that there are very few people who are known to have recovered from the disease once the clinical symptoms have set in. POE is as follows: 
 
(A) few people are known to recover from the disease after the appearance of the clinical symptoms.  (illogical meaning. This choice means that there are few people who have recovered from the disease. Incorrect) 
(B) few people are known to have recovered from the disease once the clinical symptoms have appeared  (Correctly conveys the meaning, correct use of  known to have recovered. Best choice) 
(C) there are few known people who have recovered from the disease once the clinical symptoms have appeared  (illogical meaning. This choice conveys that there few known people (known to whom?) who have recovered from the disease. Incorrect.) 
(D) after the clinical symptoms appear,there are few known people who have recovered from the disease  (Same error in meaning as in C) 
(E) recovery from the disease is known for only a few people after the clinical symptoms appear  (Illogical meaning. Incorrect)

VerbalBot · Answer

Automated notice from GMAT Club VerbalBot: 

A member just gave Kudos to this thread, showing it’s still useful. I’ve bumped it to the top so more people can benefit. Feel free to add your own questions or solutions.

 This post was generated automatically.

The fear of rabies is well founded; few people are known to recover fr

Prep Toolkit

Top 5 GMAT Debrief Videos

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

More than Quant/Verbal Abilities: Speed vs. Accuracy

745 with Only Self-Prep and GMAT Club

From 555 to 765: 210-point Improvement

Perfect 805 Score Debrief by Julia

My Rewards

GMAT Sentence Correction (SC - EA only) Questions

The fear of rabies is well founded; few people are known to recover fr

Prep Toolkit

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

More than Quant/Verbal Abilities: Speed vs. Accuracy

745 with Only Self-Prep and GMAT Club

From 555 to 765: 210-point Improvement

Perfect 805 Score Debrief by Julia

My Rewards