With surface temperatures estimated at minus 230 degrees Fahrenheit, [Prep phrase]
Jupiter's moon Europa has long been considered far too cold to support life, and
with 60 square miles of water thought to be frozen from top to bottom. [another prep phrase]

Both of the prep phrase as here to support the fact that Jupiter's moon Europa has long been considered far too cold to support life.
Its between A and B.
(A) Europa has long been considered far too cold to support life, and with
>>At first look and with seemed to be || with With surface temperatures. Also IMO, comma+And shall introduce another IC but here its an phrase.
Can someone please elucidate on this?
(B) Europa has long been considered far too cold to support life, its
>>Correct. More crisp than A.
Phrase "its ..." is modifying Europa though its not touching or quite far from modified noun. Can be read as
Europa ,its ...., has long been considered far too cold to support life.
(C) Europa has long been considered as far too cold to support life and has
>> prep phrase is converted into another clause which is wrong.Reason, now both r acting at same level in sentence structure.Whereas, original intention is two use two phrases to conclude something.
Considered as not correct.
(D) Europa, long considered as far too cold to support life, and its
>> Missing main verb. Considered as is not correct here.Even second part ,post comma+and, is missing the verb.
(E) Europa, long considered to be far too cold to support life, and to have
>>Considered to be is not correct here;Missing main verb
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If we read the original sentence as ,

With surface temperatures estimated at minus 230 degrees Fahrenheit and with 60 square miles of water thought to be frozen from top to bottom, Jupiter's moon Europa has long been considered far too cold to support life.

Does it make sense? My point is that both the the "with" phrases modify the same saem clause, "Jupiter's moon...." and are paralle as well, then why is the sentence as is wrong?

I have few questions from you-
I normally put other rules to secondary position and judge with what Ron emphasizes so much:

and should complete the laundry list
and should connect two clauses
and can also connect two similar phrases
If we ignore idiomatic error for a while in C, can we discard C as and is unable to connect two part with exactly same tenses.
first part has continuous tense and in second part the tense is not continuous.
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A. Europa has long been considered far too cold to support life, and with
comma+and introduces a new clause, but this new clause does not have a verb.

B. Europa has long been considered far too cold to support life, its
this answer choice changes comma+and to its. now we have a noun+noun modifier which correctly modifies Jupiter's Moon Europa.

C. Europa has long been considered as far too cold to support life and has
2 clauses are connected only by and.

D. Europa, long considered as far too cold to support life, and its
now long considered.. serves as a modifier, but after this modifier we have comma+and

E. Europa, long considered to be far too cold to support life, and to have
same error as in D. In addition, with this choice, the sentence does not have a verb.

Sorry to ask but I rejected B speifically because of the 'its' used in the question. As the pronoun refers back to a possessive antecedent should it not simply refer to Jupiter's rather than Europa. My construction leads to an illogical inference that Jupiter has ice. Hence, I rejected this answer choice.

Can you please explain how is its used to refer to Europa?

mailabhishekmathur wrote



Hi

Jupiter's' is not the subject here. Jupiter's moon (Europa) is the subject. 'Jupiter's' is simply an adjective.
A possessive pronoun (its) noun can certainly stand for a non- possessive noun (Europa). Only the reverse cannot happen.


Kerin wrote



Kerin
Hi
1. Yes, C is correct the way you suggest
2. We are now getting into a slightly more complicated situation of adverbial modifiers started by 'with.
With denotes a certain level of physical accompaniment. In this case, even though the 'with' modifier at the end of the sentence modifies the entire clause before it as an absolute phrase, still the absolute phrase is not contributing to the clause. In addition, the preposition 'with' may modify a noun but not an elaborate action. Probably a simple appositive would have provided the additional meaning the as effectively and that is the reason B wins over A.


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Let me try to help on this one.

As far as the idiomatic usage, considered as is non idiomatic. But consider to be or consider without a preposition is an idiomatic usage.

I also want to highlight on the usage of [with]+[noun]+[participle] construction. The sentence begins with this construction and this construction is used correctly as a prepositional modifier modifying Jupiter's moon Europa in this sentence. Though its a part of the non-underlined portion but I wanted to highlight on that part.
For more details on the usage of [with]+[noun]+[participle] construction, please refer, https://magoosh.com/gmat/2015/with-noun-participle-on-gmat-sentence-correction/

Now coming to the answer choices, POE works the best,

(A) Europa has long been considered far too cold to support life, and with
Usage of ", and" is to connect two independent clauses. But we have only one independent clause - Europa has long been considered far too cold to support life. The second independent clause is missing. Also the other usage of ", and" is to connect more than 2 elements in a list, which is also not the case here. So usage of ", and" is wrong here. Therefore, incorrect.


(B) Europa has long been considered far too cold to support life, its
Here, the part after the comma, its 60 square miles of water thought to be frozen from top to bottom is a NOUN + NOUN Modifier modifying the preceding clause. Correct. The intended meaning is that Europa is too cold to support life; a proof given to this effect is that its 60 square miles of water is thought to be frozen from top to bottom. This is clearly justified through the usage of NOUN + NOUN Modifier.

(C) Europa has long been considered as far too cold to support life and has
Considered as is not idiomatic. ALso, in this sentence, the intended meaning is lost. We are not saying 2 things in the sentence. Instead we are saying only one thing which is supported by a modifier. Therefore, C has a meaning issue. The intended meaning is that Europa is too cold to support life; a proof given to this effect is that its 60 square miles of water is thought to be frozen from top to bottom.
However, C uses and hence seems to incorrectly suggest two independent things about Europa:
i) Europa is too cold to support life
ii) Europa has 60 square miles of water thought to be frozen from top to bottom. Therefore, incorrect.


(D) Europa, long considered as far too cold to support life, and its
There is no verb for the main subject Europa. Usage of Considered as is not idiomatic. Here also, the intended meaning is lost as in option C. Incorrect.

(E) Europa, long considered to be far too cold to support life, and to have
It also repeats the similar errors as option D.