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A highly educated member - Mangoosh - Due to Diction

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by sparkles3144 » Tue Apr 29, 2014 11:43 pm
A highly educated member of a wealthy and aristocratic Boston family, Percival Lowell was interested in astronomy due to his belief in canals on Mars, which modern astronomers dismiss as material for pop science fiction.

A. Percival Lowell was interested in astronomy due to his belief in canals on Mars, which modern astronomers dismiss

B. Percival Lowell's interest in astronomy was due to his belief in canals on Mars, but with modern astronomers dismissing it

C. Percival Lowell's interest in astronomy, due to believing in canals on Mars, a view that modern astronomers dismiss

D. Percival Lowell was interested in astronomy because he believed in canals on Mars, a view that modern astronomers dismiss

E. Percival Lowell was interested in astronomy due to his belief in canals on Mars, with modern astronomers dismissing it

Answer D

Mangoosh Explanation for due to: Split #1: diction. The word "due" is an adjective, so it must either modify a noun directly, or appear after a form of "to be" in the predicate.

What does that mean?

Can someone please explain about due to usage?

Thanks!
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by aditya8062 » Wed Apr 30, 2014 2:43 am
"due to" can modify only noun .in fact for this reason u can eliminate A and E
a better way to understand this is ---->if u can replace "due to" in a sentence by "caused by" then the usage of "due to" is correct .

so if i do so A would become :Percival Lowell was interested in astronomy caused by his belief in canals on Mars, which modern astronomers dismiss as material for pop science fiction. ---->s very bad sentence indeed !!

the best answer here is indeed D
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by KevinRocci » Wed Apr 30, 2014 9:01 am
Happy to help here! :)

I really like your tip, Aditya! I think that is an excellent way to test if "due" fits in the sentence or not. :)

I can talk a little bit more about why "due" doesn't work in (A), (C), and (E). Basically, if we look at the logic in those sentences, we can see that it's a bit twisted. Let's take a look:

"...interested in astronomy due to his belief in canals on Mars..."

Can you see how this is illogical? It makes it seem like the astronomy came from a belief. That doesn't make any sense!

The intended meaning here is that he was interested in these canals on Mars and that lead to his interest in astronomy. Only answer choices (B) and (D) have the proper phrasing. Answer choice (B) uses the proper idiomatic form of "due" by placing it after a form of "to be" — "...was due to..." Without the proper placement of the "to be" verb form, we are lead into an illogical phrase.

Does that help?

I hope so! Let me know if I can make something more clear. :)
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by [email protected] » Wed Apr 30, 2014 11:20 am
Hi sparkles3144,

SCs typically involve several grammar rules; you don't necessarily need to know all of the grammar rules to choose the correct answer. For this SC, I opted for the following rules:

1) Modification - The opening part of the sentence ("a highly educated member…..,") describes/modifies a person, so we need a specific person to come after the comma (in this case, "Percival Lowell"). Eliminate B and C.

2) Style - SCs can involve a variety of style rules. One such rule is "shorter tends to be better." Now, you have to be sure that the rest of the grammar is correct, but if you have to choose between 2 phrases, the shorter one tends to be correct. Here, we have "due to his beliefs" vs. "because"; the word "because" is a much simpler, clearer way to convey the intent of the SC ("….Percival…was interested in astronomy BECAUSE…." Eliminate A and E.

Final Answer: D

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