Hi All,

Can someone help me understand why "Considered as" in answers C and D is wrong?

Although people have different opinions on this, we should probably not think that an option that has consider X as Y has no chance of being correct. However, there are a couple of points to keep in mind here:

1. Consider X as Y can always be replaced by consider X Y.
2. Consider X Y is slightly shorter than consider X as Y.

In this particular question, there are other (big) problems in the options with consider as, so you could prioritize those calls over the consider split if you feel that consider as sounds okay.
_________________

[quote="ykaiim"]With surface temperatures estimated at minus 230 degrees Fahrenheit, 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.


(A) Europa has long been considered far too cold to support life, and with

(B) Europa has long been considered far too cold to support life, its

(C) Europa has long been considered as far too cold to support life and has

(D) Europa, long considered as far too cold to support life, and its

(E) Europa, long considered to be far too cold to support life, and to have

look at choice B, the OA. I have a problem with choice B

"with temparature..." can not be an adverbial phrase, which modifies the main clause because if the phrase is so, "temparature" can not refer to Europa, and, so, the sentence is not logic

if the phrase is adjectival, which modifies only Europa, its position is wrong

the men with nice hats learn gmat well

with nice hats, the men learn gmat well (this sentence is wrong)

with a pen , I write.

in the last sentence, with phrase shows a instrument used to do the main action. this is the only case, in which with phrase is at the beginning and is not an absolute phrase
but the setence 2 is wrong. sentence 2 is similar to choice B

so, choice B is wrong.

pls, comment, am i correct ?

thangvietnam , the better question stems from this statement: the official answer is B and the official answer is correct..

How can I understand why B works in this construction?

If you were correct, then the official answer would be incorrect.
Please, rid yourself of the idea that official answers are incorrect.

I will let Ron Purewal tell you what you already know; please see THIS POST, HERE.

Do you truly believe that a phrase describing extremely cold surfaces has nothing to do with a celestial body that is too cold to sustain life?

With + noun phrase is a modifier.
Forget the rules. (No, you are not correct about the rules, either.)

What does this modifier say?
With surface temperatures estimated at minus 230 degrees Fahrenheit
The surface temperatures of something are really cold.

What follows the intro phrase in (B)?
Jupiter's moon Europa has long been considered far too cold to support life
• With + noun phrase (about cold surface temperatures) modifies
• a moon named Europa that is far too cold to support life.

The intro phrase describes the noun. The modifier is an adjectivial phrase.

I urge you to try this approach:
The official answer is correct.
You believe that it is not.
You are wrong.
Figure out why you are wrong.
(For example, what erroneous analysis led you to believe that the intro phrase was adverbial?
Even better because too much focus on rules is getting in your way: B is correct. How can I connect the meaning of the first part to the meaning of another part?)

Come back and explain how you figured out what was wrong with your analysis as long as another poster has not done so already.

That sort of post might help someone who made a similar mistake.
_________________

Dear generis AjiteshArun GMATNinja Sir

Would this construction be correct?

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.

Thanks
_________________

Hi sonusaini1 , your sentence is correct, though I would remove the first comma. Nice work!
Although I usually recommend that people not rewrite sentences, I think I understand what you are trying to do, so +1.

Unless parallel elements are really long and have no other marker that sets Y off from X (in X AND Y)
we usually do not put commas between parallel elements of this kind.

I will leave the comma, but if I color code your X and Y elements and WITH, maybe it will be easier to see why you do not need a comma.

Blue = note the second with that makes it easy to find the Y element
Green = noun phrase
WITH X and WITH Y

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.

You wisely repeated with, which clearly marks off the Y element in X AND Y.
I think one of your purposes is to make these two modifiers "hang together."
They do, but without the first comma that fact is easier to see. Well done.
_________________

VeritasKarishma

When we plug in option B "its 60 square miles of water thought to be frozen from top to bottom." Isn't it a run-on sentence?

"Its 60 square miles of water "IS" thought to be frozen from top to bottom." Shouldn't this be correct?

A quick word on adding an is (is thought): that's one of the things we need to watch out for in such constructions.
_________________

It will be a run on sentence if you add a verb (such as "is") in it since the two clauses will be joined by just a comma. Right now, it is an absolute phrase.
Read about absolute phrases here: https://www.veritasprep.com/blog/2014/0 ... -the-gmat/

'thought to be frozen' is a past participle modifying water.
_________________

Is "its 60 square miles of water thought to be frozen from top to bottom." not a clause?

#Sound can travel through water for enormous distances, prevented from dissipating its acoustic energy as a result of boundaries in the ocean created by water layers of different temperatures and densities.
1)same as underlined
2)prevented from having its acoustic energy dissipated by
3)its acoustic energy prevented from dissipating by This statement sounds weird to me, because it seems like a helping verb "is" is missing. Isn't this complete: "It's acoustic energy IS prevented from dissipating by.." Please help me understand what I am missing.
4) its acoustic energy prevented from being dissipated as a result of
5) preventing its acoustic energy from dissipating by

Hi PANKAJ0901, its acoustic energy prevented from dissipating by.... is (what's called as) an Absolute modifier, which has the following construct;

Noun (its acoustic energy) + Noun-modifier (prevented from dissipating by...)

You can watch our video on Absolute Modifiers.

In fact, if the verb is had been used, then C would not have been the right answer, because then the sentence would have been a run-on sentence: following two Independent clauses, connected by just a comma:

i) Sound can travel through water for enormous distances

ii) Its acoustic energy is prevented from dissipating by boundaries in the ocean created by water layers of different temperatures and densities

p.s. Our book EducationAisle Sentence Correction Nirvana discusses "run-on construct" and "Absolute Modifiers", their application and examples in significant detail. If you or someone is interested, PM me your email-id; I can mail the corresponding section.
_________________

Besides absolute phrases and idioms, is there any other way to eliminate C?

I've seen people telling that meaning could help, and, although I can understand the difference, I think that there is no wrong one, and if you look closer, A seems to tell us something that is closest related to C than it is to B.

A. Parallelism
B Correct
C. ???
D. Parallelism
E. Parallelism

I ask this because I did not see the idiom or knew about absolute phrases...

GMATNinja, im marking you here, but if I should not just tell me so! Just read every post here and could not find an answer. It took me about 1:30 to do so and even after exploring other websites it did not convince me... =/
_________________

On SC questions, the correct answer is the option that: 1) doesn't violate any grammar rules and 2) most clearly expresses the author's intended meaning. So, it is absolutely possible to eliminate an answer choice that is grammatically correct -- it all depends on whether there are more clear or logical options to choose.

Also, the "intended meaning" of the sentence is not always the meaning expressed in answer choice (A). Treat (A) just like any other option, and choose the answer choice that actually makes the most sense.

Here are (B) and (C):

The first difference between these options is that (C) has an "and." The parallelism is fine from a grammatical standpoint: "has long been considered" is parallel to "has 60 miles."

But how does the "and" impact the meaning of the sentence?

When you use the word "and," you're basically just listing things that are somewhat related. You could say, for example, "I like dosas and gazelles." Here, the only thing in common between "dosas" and "gazelles" is that I like them both. (Mmm... dosas. )

(B) doesn't use the word "and." Instead, it changes the last part of the sentence into a modifier. Consider this example: "I watched gazelles in the savannah, reveling in their bouncy beauty." Here, the last part of my (admittedly kinda ridiculous) sentence is tied much more closely to the first -- in fact, it can't even stand on its own. It exists to give further information about the preceding clause.

So, which version works best with the official question? The author isn't just listing loosely related facts about Europa. Instead, he/she is discussing whether Europa can support life. It makes more sense for the fact about frozen water to modify the main clause, rather than exist on its own as a separate thought.

Is the "and" in (C) absolutely wrong? No, it's not. But when you have eliminated all of the options with grammar errors and still have a couple left, you have to consider how the differences in your remaining options impact the meaning of the sentence. On that front, (B) wins out over (C).

Additionally, the idiom "considered as" is not great. But it's really not worth your time to worry too much about idioms, so I recommend you stick to analyzing grammar and meaning instead.

I hope that helps!
_________________

Hi,

"its 60 square miles of water thought to be frozen from top to bottom." cannot be a clause
A clause is a group of words with a subject-verb combination.

"its 60 square miles of water (subject) thought to be frozen from top to bottom (participial phrase modifying or describing water)."
We have a subject and a modifier but no verb. Therefore it ends up becoming a phrase. An absolute phrase in the given sentence.

Hope this helps.

Options C, D, and E can be directly eliminated on the basis of idiomatic usage.
The verb “consider” cannot be followed by “as” or “to be”

Eg- I consider it my duty to help others- correct.
I consider it as my duty to help others- incorrect.
I consider it to be my duty to help others- incorrect.

Between Options A and B,

(A) With surface temperatures estimated at minus 230 degrees Fahrenheit, 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.

The use of “and” should introduce another clause but here there is no main verb, making it a phrase. Hence incorrect.
and with 60 square miles of water thought to be frozen from top to bottom.
“thought to be frozen…” is a participial phrase modifying “water”


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

“With surface temp….”, Jupiter’s moon Europa (subject) has long been considered (verb) far too cold…., its 60 square miles.. (modifies the preceding clause)

Correct.

Vishnupriya
GMAT Verbal SME
_________________

With surface temperatures estimated at minus 230 degrees Fahrenheit, 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.

Let us look at the bones of each sentence:

Europa has long been considered far too cold to support life, and with

With surface temperatures estimated at minus 230 degrees Fahrenheit, and with 60 square miles of water thought to be frozen from top to bottom.

eh, that's definitely not good, "With X and Y"... what about "with X and Y"?? Maybe if it was something like With X and Y, Z happened.

Also, look at both sides of the 'and', it's not parallel. "considered X" and "with Y"

Europa has long been considered far too cold to support life, its

With surface temperatures estimated at minus 230 degrees Fahrenheit, its 60 square miles of water thought to be frozen from top to bottom.

That sounds pretty legit. With X, its Y does Z.

Europa has long been considered as far too cold to support life and has

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

This one cannot be decomposed into bones. But look it says "considered as".
Why is this wrong?
“Considered as” is wrong because it is redundant. For example, “He was considered a fighter” has the exact same meaning as “He was considered as a fighter”. The “as” is unnecessary and redundant. This also confused me until I Googled it lol.

Europa, long considered as far too cold to support life, and its

With surface temperatures estimated at minus 230 degrees Fahrenheit, and its 60 square miles of water thought to be frozen from top to bottom.

Again, it has "considered as", see above for reasoning as to why that is not good.

Also, like with A, saying "With X and Y" is wrong. what about "with X and Y"?? Maybe if it was something like "With X and Y, Z happened."

Also, things are not parallel on both sides of the "and". "at X" and "its Y" is not parallel.

Europa, long considered to be far too cold to support life, and to have

With surface temperatures estimated at minus 230 degrees Fahrenheit, and to have 60 square miles of water thought to be frozen from top to bottom.

Also, like with A, saying "With X and Y" is wrong. what about "with X and Y"?? Maybe if it was something like "With X and Y, Z happened."

Also, things are not parallel on both sides of the "and". "at X" and "to have Y" is not parallel.

Hi MartyTargetTestPrep - want to avoid learning idioms so I dont want to eliminate C based on an idiom issue ONLY.

Instead, I want to understand how to eliminate C based on meaning / structure instead.

Per my visualization of option C -- I dont see why the X marker (green highlight) and the Y marker (in blue highlight) CANNOT stand on the same level.

After all, Y marker (in blue highight) DOES work with the subject Europa AND the sentence does makes sense with the initial modifier (in grey)

i. With surface temperatures estimated at minus 230 F, Europa has long been considered as far too cold to support life
AND
ii. With surface temperatures estimated at minus 230 F, Europa has 60 square miles of water thought to be frozen from top to bottom.

I agree that the Y marker (in blue highlight) COULD modify the X marker (green highlight) as well

But both interepretations work per my understanding

Thoughts ?

Let's focus on your two parts of the (C) version of the sentence.

The first is the following:

i. With surface temperatures estimated at minus 230 F, Europa has long been considered as far too cold to support life

That sentence makes sense. It's logical that a moon with such cold surface temperatures would be considered far too cold to support life.

Now let's consider the second:

ii. With surface temperatures estimated at minus 230 F, Europa has 60 square miles of water thought to be frozen from top to bottom.

That sentence means basically the following: With cold surface temperatures, Europa has lots of water.

That sentence is not really logical. What do cold surface temperatures have to do with having water?

So, the (C) version is illogical, while the (B) version, as has been discussed in this thread, conveys a meaning that makes sense.
_________________

Hi MartyTargetTestPrep - Thank you for following up

On the second

ii. With surface temperatures estimated at minus 230 F, Europa has 60 square miles of water thought to be frozen from top to bottom.

I agree with your interpretation of # 2, mentioned in the purple above, but with one change.

I thought # 2 was saying : With cold surface temperatures, Europa has lots of water (Thought to be frozen )

I understand : (Thought to be frozen ) is an adjective and not technically part of the main clause "Europa has lots of water"

You dont get the impression # 2 is perhaps saying :

Given the cold surface temperatures, many people think Europa's water to be frozen ?

I suppose "NO" because then "thought" cannot be an adjective but "thought" should be a verb instead [i.e. Think or Is thought]

Just curious on your thoughts