460

vaivish · Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2008 12:47 pm Post subject: 460

460. It could be argued that the most significant virtue of a popular democracy is not the right to 10 participate in the selection of leaders, but rather that it affirms our importance in the scheme of things.
(A) but rather that it affirms
(B) but rather its affirmation of
(C) but rather it’s affirmation in terms of
(D) but instead of that, its affirming that
(E) affirming rather

ricky · Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2008 12:57 pm Post subject:

IMO C....

What is OA?

Aldiablo · Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2008 11:38 pm Post subject:

IMO B.

vaivish · Posted: Tue Jul 22, 2008 11:39 am Post subject:

OA is B

kiranlegend · Posted: Tue Jul 22, 2008 12:20 pm Post subject: Re: 460

gmatutor · Posted: Tue Jul 22, 2008 6:29 pm Post subject:

Here the best is answer can be identified by the use of a comma and the conjunction 'but'.

Everything that follows must be a complete sentence with a subject verb and object. (At least on the GMAT this makes a complete sentence.)

A) is wrong because the word 'that' subordinates the second clause.
B) is correct because it correctly uses affirmation as the subject of the second clause.
C) is wrong because it misuses it's, which is equivalent to it is.
D) is wrong because neither of the two thats, used as pronouns, have logical referents,
E) lacks contrast among other much more serious problems.

This question isn't a pretty poor take on an OG question, the Voyager II question (incidentally the only question that shows up both in the 11OG and the purple verbal supplement). I have never seen the apostrophe s on its tested on a real GMAT question.

ildude02 · Posted: Tue Jul 22, 2008 9:22 pm Post subject:

gmatutor · Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2008 4:51 am Post subject:

I have only noticed one situation where this doesn't work and that is with a modifying phrase. For example:

John bought a house, but not a very big one, with the money he saved from delivering papers.

In this case the word but it used as an adverb and has a similar meaning to however.

This question is obviously a take on question 87 in the 11th OG or 172 in the 10th OG.

In the OG question the wrong answer choices are made up of semicolons and comma-conjunction pairs.

This is typically the way it would appear on the GMAT, making it clear that the question tests run on sentences.

In this particular sentence you can identify that there are two complete clauses in the sentence. So a comma and conjunction is appropriate as long as neither of the sentences is subordinated, which is the case in A.

The word 'that' can be both a subordinating conjunction and a pronoun so you should be a little cautious when identifying its function. In this sentence the word it is clearly the subject of the second clause so we can rule out the possibility of that being a conjunction.