C, D, E OUT. consider as and consider to be are unidiomatic

Between A and B

A fails parallelism. I need another "has" to make it parallel.

B is left.

In option A the AND introduces a parallel structure - both left and right should be parallel.

left: Europa has long been considered far too cold to support life
right: Europa thought to be frozen from top to bottom (I've removed the with 60 miles of water that modifies Europa)

In the above, left and right are not parallel. To make them parallel:
Europa has long been considered || Europa is thought to be frozen

'thought' by itself is not a verb here. If a sentence is to be constructed with 'thought' alone as a verb then I think (notice I've used the present tense of 'thought' as a verb here) it should look like: Europa thought that she was frozen from top to bottom - this construction is silly as it gives life to Europa.
The author is trying to say 'Everyone thinks that Europa is frozen from top to bottom' which is why we have 'Europa is thought to be (by everyone) frozen..'.

Hope you get what I'm trying to say...Please let me know if you need further clarity. Also, there's a good explanation of this topic here.
Sid
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My debrief: done-and-dusted-730-q49-v40

Hey Sid,

If you're really using all the rules without naming them, that should be enough. But I find categorization is dependent on really having the names of the categories in your head, otherwise it's too much gut. I don't know how you're scoring on SC, but if you take our free practice test and your SC percent is under 60/65% correct, definitely consider pushing it a little harder and learning all the terminology. If you're doing better than that, however, it means that whatever you're doing is working, so keep doing it!

-t
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Tommy Wallach | Manhattan GMAT Instructor | San Francisco

Manhattan GMAT Discount | Manhattan GMAT Reviews

Thanks Tommy, Sid for the explanation - I've wondered about this problem.

Hey Sid, is it possible to upload the 25 questions in the SC question bank in this forum?

Yeah Seekmba, I got those 25 questions along with the purchase of the SC guide so I'd be violating copyrights if I were to post those questions here. I'd suggest you go ahead and get the SC guide (1st preference) or the Number properties guide (2nd preference). Both these books are top notch and you also get access to the corresponding question banks (25 questions each) and 1 year's access to the 6 online MGMAT tests.
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My debrief: done-and-dusted-730-q49-v40

Let me try.

IMO B.

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


Already we conclude that Europa is not suitable for life and a comma and more explanation adds more info. So apt and looks correct.

Answer must be B
First of all we do have to consider the correct usage of "With".
ex- "With 4 childrens at home, Rachel barely has any spare time for her hobbies".
Notice that the two clauses of the above sentence are reinforcing into each other.
So the sentence must complete after the second clause. If it does'nt, then the third clause must be a modifier, modifying the preceding clause.
B does it correctly.
", its 60 square miles of water thought to be frozen from top to bottom" is an absolute phrase that is modifying " Europa has long been considered far too cold to support life".
Whats the OA and the source?
-s
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\(NAIL\) \(THE\) \(ABSOLUTE\) \(PHRASES\)

#
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

This is many of those questions, which urge us to say "what does the author wants to convey?".
GMATTERS this is an example of the Absolute Phrase question. The sentences involving this concept generally introduce two clauses of which one modifies the entire idea of the preceding clause.

Most of the GMATTERS may be able to nail the question, under 2 mins, just posted above. But I am pretty sure that they must have neglected the concept of Absolute Phrases. There are/can be several mistakes in such questions which can easily help us to find the correct answer.

Anyways the answer to the question just posted above is .
In order to tackle such questions, I developed a technique and found it pretty useful.

Whenever you see such question, break the sentence into clauses, the basic step in SC questions. This blue portion is itself the Absolute Phrase which modifies the entire idea of the preceding clause.
Anyways, break the entire sentence into clauses.
i)With surface temperatures estimated at minus 230 degrees Fahrenheit.
ii)Jupiter's moon Europa has long been considered far too cold to support life.
iii)and with 60 square miles of water thought to be frozen from top to bottom.

Notice that the third clause is NOT the independent clause.

The method is Stop youself at the end of the clause after which the following clause is not independent and RAISE THE QUESTION \(HOW?\). If the forecoming clauses answers your question in exactly in its own words, then that clause is the Absolute Phrase and is the correct choice.

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
With surface temperatures estimated at minus 230 degrees Fahrenheit, Jupiter's moon Europa has long been considered far too cold to support life, \(HOW?\)and with 60 square miles of water thought to be frozen from top to bottom. Does it answers HOW in its own words? NO! Eliminate it.

(B) Europa has long been considered far too cold to support life, its
With surface temperatures estimated at minus 230 degrees Fahrenheit, Jupiter's moon Europa has long been considered far too cold to support life,\(HOW?\) its 60 square miles of water thought to be frozen from top to bottom. Does it answers HOW in its own words? YES!

(C) 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 moon Europa has long been considered far too cold to support life and has 60 square miles of water thought to be frozen from top to bottom. All clauses are independent. No Absolute Phrase.

(D) Europa, long considered as far too cold to support life, and its
With surface temperatures estimated at minus 230 degrees Fahrenheit, Jupiter's moon Europa has long been considered far too cold to support life,\(HOW?\) and its 60 square miles of water thought to be frozen from top to bottom. Does it answers HOW in its own words? NO!


(E) Europa, long considered to be far too cold to support life, and to have
Disaster. eliminate it at once.

Other examples are:

#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
4) its acoustic energy prevented from being dissipated as a result of
5) preventing its acoustic energy from dissipating by

#Margaret Courtney-Clarke has traveled to remote dwellings in the Transvaal to photograph the art of Ndebele women, whose murals are brilliantly colored, their geometrical symmetries embellished with old and new iconography and in a style that varies from woman to woman and house to house.
(A) whose murals are brilliantly colored, their geometrical symmetries embellished with old and new iconography and in a style that varies from woman to woman and house to house
(B) whose murals are brilliantly colored, their geometrical symmetries are embellished with old and new iconography, and their style is varying among women and houses
(C) whose murals are brilliantly colored, their geometrical symmetries are embellished with old and new iconography, and they are in styles that vary from woman to woman and house to house
(D) with murals brilliantly colored, their geometrical symmetries embellished with old and new iconography, and their style varies among women and houses
(E) with murals that are brilliantly colored, their geometrical symmetries.

Hope all the above stuff helps to beat the Absolute Phrase.
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I already said in the post that the question may be done by using other methods as well.
May I know which Idiom are you talking about in the above questions. I always kept myself miles away from Idioms.
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