BlueBook
Hey GMATClubbers,
What is which modifying in the sentence below and how can it be corrected? Trying to understand the subtle nuances of 'which' Thanks
The Independence-war of America,
which was fought between 1775 and 1783, resulted in “American Enlightenment”.
Hi
BlueBook, the above sentence is very
unlikely to be correct on GMAT (as we have mentioned in the book as well).
A better sentence would be:
America's Independence-war, which was fought between 1775 and 1783, resulted in “American Enlightenment”.In the above sentence,
which is correctly modifying
Independence-war, and hence, is more preferable construct.
An incorrect
official sentence:
It is called a sea, but the landlocked Caspian is actually the largest lake on Earth, which covers more than four times the surface area of its closest rival in size, North America's Lake Superior.
The official explanation for this sentence says:
Because "Earth" immediately precedes "which", the sentence appears to say, illogically, that "Earth" covers more than four times the surface area of Lake Superior.Bottom-line: For the most part, on GMAT,
which modifies the
nearest grammatically eligible word, as we have also mentioned in our book. Hence, in case where this is not happening, our suggestion is to keep that option on the back-burner and revisit such option only when there is something significantly wrong with all other answer choices.