Hello, I found this question on the GMAT question bank:
https://gmatclub.com/forum/had-russian- ... 78213.htmlHad Russian lieutenant colonel Stanislav Petrov not correctly judged the early warning system’s reports of an incoming nuclear missile on September 26, 1983, to be false and disobeyed orders from his superiors to retaliate, Russia and the United States would likely have entered a large-scale nuclear war.
C. Russian lieutenant colonel Stanislav Petrov likely prevented a large-scale nuclear war between the United States and Russia on September 26, 1983 by correctly judging that the early warning system’s reports of an incoming nuclear missile were false, disobeying orders from his superiors to retaliate.
D. On September 26, 1983, Russian lieutenant colonel Stanislav Petrov correctly judged that the early warning system’s reports of an incoming nuclear missile were false, disobeying orders from his superiors to retaliate and likely preventing the United States and Russia from entering a large-scale nuclear war.
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An explanation is that a comma-ing modifier will point back to the main subject and verb "Petrov correctly judged". 'Disobeying orders" does not describe how "Petrov correctly judged", neither does "preventing the United States".
However, the user who answered this question, said that option (C) is incorrect because the comma-ing modifier now acts as the result, and it does not make sense for the "Petrov likely prevented" to have a result of 'disobeying', it should be the other way around.
So now
I am confused, is the comma-ing modifier a result? Or is it a description? What does it do?
Let's say that it is a result, then wouldn't D be correct, as disobeying orders is a result of correctly judging the situation?