Sentence Correction

Unlike the original National Museum of Science and Technology in Italy, where the models are encased in glass or operated only by staff members, the Virtual Leonardo Project, an online version of the museum, encourages visitors to "touch" each exhibit, which thereby activates the animated functions of the piece.

A. exhibit, which thereby activates
B. exhibit, in turn an activation of
C. exhibit, and it will activate
D. exhibit and thereby activate
E. exhibit which, as a result, activates

OA: D

@ Experts - I'm LITTLE BIT confused to interpret this SC. Could you please come up with some SOLID reasons to clarify why Ais wrong and Dis the OA ?

P.S: As far as Technology is concerned, I think, some non-living object (say, an Exhibit in a Museum) performing some actions on TOUCH is quite possible - and thus the Exhibit becomes DIRECT agent of that action occurred because of TOUCH! Curious to know what LOGIC GMAT uses in this SC!

@ Experts - I'm LITTLE BIT confused to interpret this SC. Could you please come up with some SOLID reasons to clarify why Ais wrong and Dis the OA ?

In A we have, "the Virtual Leonardo Project, an online version of the museum, encourages visitors to "touch" each exhibit, which thereby activates the animated functions of the piece." Remember that "which" is a relative pronoun, so it will typically modify the closest noun. Because "which" appears to modify "exhibit," the meaning here is that the exhibit activates the animated functions of the piece. This is not the intended meaning.
It would make far more sense to write that the animated functions of the piece are activated as a result of the visitors' touch. This is the meaning of D. ("thereby" simply means "as a result.")

DavidG@VeritasPrep wrote:

@ Experts - I'm LITTLE BIT confused to interpret this SC. Could you please come up with some SOLID reasons to clarify why Ais wrong and Dis the OA ?

In A we have, "the Virtual Leonardo Project, an online version of the museum, encourages visitors to "touch" each exhibit, which thereby activates the animated functions of the piece." Remember that "which" is a relative pronoun, so it will typically modify the closest noun. Because "which" appears to modify "exhibit," the meaning here is that the exhibit activates the animated functions of the piece. This is not the intended meaning.
It would make far more sense to write that the animated functions of the piece are activated as a result of the visitors' touch. This is the meaning of D. ("thereby" simply means "as a result.")

Hi Dave,
I understand your reasoning - in fact, my DOUBT is exactly in this line of reasoning! (Please see my logic mentioned in the original post)

I'm NOT able to comprehend why an Exhibit CAN'T really activate the animated functions as a result of the visitors' touch ?

Please help!

It is just that the exhibit itself is not doing anything. The act of the touch is what activates the functionality. The exhibit does nothing to activate the animation. If it were a robot, you turned on the robot, and then the robot actually did something to start the animation, the structure in A would work.

I'm NOT able to comprehend why an Exhibit CAN'T really activate the animated functions as a result of the visitors' touch ?

Your choice really boils down to two logical options:

1) The visitor touches the exhibit and as a result of this touch, the animated function is activated (Choice D)

or 2) The visitor touches the exhibit, and then the exhibit activates the animated function. (Choice A)

Option 1 is perfectly logical. Option 2, makes it sound as though the exhibit is an active agent capable of receiving instructions and then performing an action in response to those instructions. It doesn't seem logical to assume that a museum exhibit possesses this kind of intelligence/capability. (To select option 2, you'd have to make a pretty convoluted argument about the nature of agency and causality. A robot or computer algorithm, as Jim noted, can do something in response to a command, but can a museum exhibit? Any time you have a choice between a plainly logical option and an option that requires complex reasoning to justify, you'll always prefer the plainly logical answer choice.)

Much thanks Dave for your detailed clarification!

Moreover, I think, though a museum can have Robots on display, we're concerned in this SC with an online version of the museum , hence it seems that D would make more sense that Visitors are actually doing BOTH the actions - TOUCH and ACTIVATE.

Hi instructors/experts,

I have no idea about B.
IMO, "an activation of... " works as an apposition noun,
"in turn" is a prep, modifier the apposition noun,

please help to clarify my fault

thanks a lot.
have a nice day
>_~

DavidG@VeritasPrep wrote: In A we have, "the Virtual Leonardo Project, an online version of the museum, encourages visitors to "touch" each exhibit, which thereby activates the animated functions of the piece." Remember that "which" is a relative pronoun, so it will typically modify the closest noun. Because "which" appears to modify "exhibit," the meaning here is that the exhibit activates the animated functions of the piece. This is not the intended meaning.
It would make far more sense to write that the animated functions of the piece are activated as a result of the visitors' touch. This is the meaning of D. ("thereby" simply means "as a result.")

In D, I'm wondering whether this is split infinitive: to touch and [to] thereby activate ?

gocoder wrote:In D, I'm wondering whether this is split infinitive: to touch and [to] thereby activate ?

The OA implies the following:
The Virtual Leonardo Project encourages visitors to "touch" each exhibit and thereby [to] activate the animated functions.

Regardless, I would not eliminate an answer choice simply because it contains a split infinitive.
For a discussion of this issue, check my third post here:
https://www.beatthegmat.com/tourism-comm ... 92367.html

gocoder wrote:

DavidG@VeritasPrep wrote: In A we have, "the Virtual Leonardo Project, an online version of the museum, encourages visitors to "touch" each exhibit, which thereby activates the animated functions of the piece." Remember that "which" is a relative pronoun, so it will typically modify the closest noun. Because "which" appears to modify "exhibit," the meaning here is that the exhibit activates the animated functions of the piece. This is not the intended meaning.
It would make far more sense to write that the animated functions of the piece are activated as a result of the visitors' touch. This is the meaning of D. ("thereby" simply means "as a result.")

In D, I'm wondering whether this is split infinitive: to touch and [to] thereby activate ?

Well, you could argue that the writer intends: to touch and thereby [to] activate, but really, it doesn't matter. Ultimately, the GMAT abides by general usage rules, and the consensus is that split infinitives are not terribly egregious sins. You need a more definitive reason to eliminate an answer choice.