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MGMAT:phlogiston

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by ashish2104 » Thu Aug 19, 2010 3:21 am
Until Antoine Lavoisier proved otherwise in the eighteenth century, many scientists had believed that combustion released phlogiston, an imaginary substance whose properties were not fully understood.
A)many scientists had believed that combustion released phlogiston, an imaginary substance whose properties were not fully understood
B)many scientists believed that phlogiston was an imaginary substance released by combustion and its properties were not fully understood
C)phlogiston was an imaginary substance whose properties were not fully understood and which many scientists had believed was released by combustion
D)phlogiston, an imaginary substance whose properties were not fully understood, was believed by scientists to be released by combustion
E)many scientists had believed that phlogiston was released by combustion and was an imaginary substance whose properties were not fully understood


OAA
I dont understand how construction E incorrectly implies that scientists had believed that phlogiston was imaginary.
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Source: — Sentence Correction |

by Anju@Gurome » Thu Aug 19, 2010 8:15 pm
ashish2104 wrote:Until Antoine Lavoisier proved otherwise in the eighteenth century, many scientists had believed that combustion released phlogiston, an imaginary substance whose properties were not fully understood.
A)many scientists had believed that combustion released phlogiston, an imaginary substance whose properties were not fully understood
B)many scientists believed that phlogiston was an imaginary substance released by combustion and its properties were not fully understood
C)phlogiston was an imaginary substance whose properties were not fully understood and which many scientists had believed was released by combustion
D)phlogiston, an imaginary substance whose properties were not fully understood, was believed by scientists to be released by combustion
E)many scientists had believed that phlogiston was released by combustion and was an imaginary substance whose properties were not fully understood


OAA
I dont understand how construction E incorrectly implies that scientists had believed that phlogiston was imaginary.
Ashish, E is somewhat self-contradictory.....it states that scientists believed phlogiston to be imaginary... if the scientists believed that phlogiston was actually being released, then they clearly didn't think that it was an imaginary substance.
Also, if they thought that phlogiston was imaginary, they would not believe that it could be released from a real, non-imaginary chemical reaction.

In option A, 'phlogiston' is used as an appositive and that makes more sense - the main idea of the sentence is that the scientists believed that combustion released phlogiston.
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by ankurmit » Thu Aug 19, 2010 10:10 pm
Can anyone make me understand whats problem with D.
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Ankur mittal
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