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Modifier problems

by agarwalva » Sat Apr 07, 2012 7:44 am
1)Of the people who brought about theReformation, the religious revolution that grewout of objections to the doctrines of themedieval church, Martin Luther is the bestknown of them.
(A)Martin Luther is the best known of them
(B)the best known is Martin Luther
(C)the better known of them was MartinLuther
(D)Martin Luther is better known
(E)the best known one was Martin Luther

OA B

2)Of all the countries contiguous to China, theSoviet Union's borders were most stronglydefended.
(A)the Soviet Union's borders were moststrongly defended
(B)the borders of the Soviet Union weredefended more strongly than any of theothers
(C)the Soviet Union's borders stood out forthe strength of their defensive capability
(D)the Soviet Union had the most stronglydefended borders
(E)the Soviet Union's were the most stronglydefended borders
OA D

Please can some one explin how the OA is B in the first q/s

Also Please can someone throw some light on Prepositional phrases vs participle phrases[/spoiler]
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by Bill@VeritasPrep » Sat Apr 07, 2012 7:58 am
1)Of the people who brought about theReformation, the religious revolution that grewout of objections to the doctrines of themedieval church, Martin Luther is the bestknown of them.


(A) "of them" is redundant since we started the sentence with "of the people"

(B) correct; avoids redundancy and uses present tense "is.

(C)"of them" is redundant

(D)"better" is used to compare two items; since we have "of the people," we can safely say that we have more than two. As a result, we need the superlative form "best"

(E) "one" is unneeded, and the use of "was" is incorrect. He is still the best known, so we should use present tense.
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by Bill@VeritasPrep » Sat Apr 07, 2012 8:02 am
2)Of all the countries contiguous to China, the Soviet Union's borders were most strongly defended.

(A) Since we're comparing the strength of border defenses between countries, we need "the most strongly defended." Otherwise, it sounds like we're simply describing the Soviet Union's defenses individually.

(B) Since the opening phrase starts with "of all the countries," the country itself should be the subject, not the borders.

(C) Same as B

(D) the Soviet Union had the most strongly defended borders correct subject (Soviet Union) and uses "the most strongly defended."

(E) Same as B and C

Also Please can someone throw some light on Prepositional phrases vs participle phrases[/spoiler]
I highly recommend the Hypergrammar site from the University of Ottawa: https://www.writingcentre.uottawa.ca/hyp ... rfunc.html
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by GmatKiss » Sat Apr 07, 2012 10:08 am
Of the people who brought about theReformation, the religious revolution that grewout of objections to the doctrines of themedieval church, Martin Luther is the bestknown of them.

(A)Martin Luther is the best known of them

(B)the best known is Martin Luther

(C)the better known of them was Martin Luther

(D)Martin Luther is the best known

(E)the best known one was Martin Luther

What now, with a modified option D ?
Pls help me getting this right!

Thanks in advance,
GK
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by patanjali.purpose » Sat Apr 07, 2012 11:04 am
GmatKiss wrote:Of the people who brought about theReformation, the religious revolution that grewout of objections to the doctrines of themedieval church, Martin Luther is the bestknown of them.

(A)Martin Luther is the best known of them

(B)the best known is Martin Luther

(C)the better known of them was Martin Luther

(D)Martin Luther is the best known

(E)the best known one was Martin Luther

What now, with a modified option D ?
Pls help me getting this right!

Thanks in advance,
GK
Interesting twist; I have read one of the posts (by an expert, I think, Ron's) in which he mentioned that such phrase is adjectival, eg:

Of pure Blackfoot Indian heritage, Jonas is eligible to receive free college scholarships from the tribal government - here "Of pure Blackfoot Indian heritage" is acting as an adjective modifying Jonas. But, he also mentioned that such construction is awkward, but correct. If we keep this in mind, I would prefer D in your changed question. THe same rule can be applied for question 2 of the original poster.

Having said that we all know opening prep modifiers are generally adverb modifiers - from this perspective both B/D appears right in your changed question. But D serves additional purpose when "Of pure Blackfoot Indian heritage" is adjective modifier. IMO D
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by Bill@VeritasPrep » Sat Apr 07, 2012 11:24 am
I think your new version of D is a bit better than B, but grammatically they're both fine.
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by GmatKiss » Sat Apr 07, 2012 11:45 am
Bill@VeritasPrep wrote:I think your new version of D is a bit better than B, but grammatically they're both fine.
Am sure that the GMAT will not have such a question (modified one).

IMO:

But still, "Of the people" , needs Martin Luther just after the comma.
Even in the original version, "better known" is grammatically correct!!
Why is this rule ambiguous, why is there "sometimes this is correct","exception for certain rules" ?

Thanks for all your time for me :)
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by Bill@VeritasPrep » Sat Apr 07, 2012 12:12 pm
"Better known" is not grammatically correct in the original version of D. Since we're talking about more than two people, we have to use the superlative form "best."

One item--simple form. Arsenal is good.
Two items--comparative form. Arsenal is better than Tottenham is.
Three or more items--superlative form. Of all the soccer teams in London, Arsenal is the best.

I think having "best known" after the comma (as in B) is fine. "Of all the people"...okay, who are we talking about? "the best known" of all the people.
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