Sentence Correction

In A.D. 391, resulting from the destruction of the largest library of the ancient world at Alexandria, later generations lost all but the Lliad and Odyssey among Greek epics, most of the poetry of Pindar and Sappho, and dozens of plays by Aeschylus and Euripides.

When we see an underlined portion sandwiched between two commas, the question is most likely testing MODIFIERS. When we have a PRESENT PARTICIPLE (ending in -ing) as an opening modifier, then it must modify the SUBJECT that comes after it.

Here, the subject is "later generations." It doesn't make sense to say that the later generations were "resulting," so this doesn't work.


A) resulting from the destruction of the largest library of the ancient world at Alexandria
"resulting" does not correctly modify "later generations." Incorrect.

B) the destroying of the largest library of the ancient world at Alexandria resulted and
It's idiomatically incorrect to use "the destroying" as a gerund if another action noun form exists: destruction. Incorrect

C) because of the result of the destruction of the library at Alexandria, the largest of the ancient world,
"because of the result" is redundant. Incorrect

D) as a result of the destruction of the library at Alexandria, the largest of the ancient world,
The opening modifier "as a result" is an adverbial modifier, modifying the clause "later generations lost..." This makes perfect sense. Correct!

E) Alexandria's largest library of the ancient world was destroyed, and the result was
Instead of an initial modifier, this underlined piece is now a separate independent clause. This alters the meaning slightly, by disconnecting modifier + modifiee. The real issue, though, is that it's incorrect to say "and the result was, later generations lost..." We would have to say "and the result was THAT later generations lost..." We can't use a comma to separate a verb and a dependent clause; we can only use a relative pronoun such as "that." Incorrect.

The answer is D.

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