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Need Expert Advice on this killer 700-800 level SC question

by amandeep.hora » Mon Aug 15, 2011 5:15 am
Agatha Christie's travels with her archaeologist husband inspired her to write several mystery novels; travelers to Egypt can still stay at the Old Cataract Hotel, the model for the hotel in one of Christie's most famous books.
"¢ Agatha Christie's travels with her archaeologist husband inspired her to write several mystery novels
"¢ Agatha Christie used her travels with her archaeologist husband to inspire several mystery novels
"¢ Because her husband was an archaeologist, Agatha Christie was able to use their travels as inspiration for several
of her mystery novels
"¢ Together with her archaeologist husband, Agatha Christie was inspired to incorporate their travel into several of
her mystery novels
"¢ Agatha Christie's travels with her archaeologist husband served as inspiration for several of her mystery novels

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Correct Answer is E
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Aman
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by aspirant2011 » Mon Aug 15, 2011 10:29 am
amandeep.hora wrote:Agatha Christie's travels with her archaeologist husband inspired her to write several mystery novels; travelers to Egypt can still stay at the Old Cataract Hotel, the model for the hotel in one of Christie's most famous books.

"¢ Agatha Christie's travels with her archaeologist husband inspired her to write several mystery novels ------ no clear referant of pronoun her
"¢ Agatha Christie used her travels with her archaeologist husband to inspire several mystery novels------- changes the intended meaning
"¢ Because her husband was an archaeologist, Agatha Christie was able to use their travels as inspiration for several of her mystery novels
"¢ Together with her archaeologist husband, Agatha Christie was inspired to incorporate their travel into several of her mystery novels----- changes the intended meaning as it seems that her husband also incorporated their travel in mystery novels
"¢ Agatha Christie's travels with her archaeologist husband served as inspiration for several of her mystery novels------- changes the intended meaning

I don't know how the OA is E because according to me E changes the intended meaning of the sentence.
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by saketk » Tue Aug 16, 2011 10:04 am
amandeep.hora wrote:Agatha Christie's travels with her archaeologist husband inspired her to write several mystery novels; travelers to Egypt can still stay at the Old Cataract Hotel, the model for the hotel in one of Christie's most famous books.
"¢ Agatha Christie's travels with her archaeologist husband inspired her to write several mystery novels
"¢ Agatha Christie used her travels with her archaeologist husband to inspire several mystery novels
"¢ Because her husband was an archaeologist, Agatha Christie was able to use their travels as inspiration for several
of her mystery novels
"¢ Together with her archaeologist husband, Agatha Christie was inspired to incorporate their travel into several of
her mystery novels
"¢ Agatha Christie's travels with her archaeologist husband served as inspiration for several of her mystery novels

Scroll down for Answer
Correct Answer is E
Sorry, I removed the space between question and answer. I am no expert -- just wanted to share my approach.
First of All, look at option C and D. The use of Plural "Their" is incorrect because the Subject is Singular (Agatha Christie) . - Eliminate C and D.

A does not sound good to ears (it was Agatha Christie, who traveled with her archaeologist husband and not Agatha Christie's Travels) - Eliminate A

B, Changes the intended meaning of the Sentence and also sounds illogical. This sentence says she used her travels with her husband to inspire mystery novels, looks awkward to me. The original meaning is "She used her travels as an inspiration to write several mystery novels.".

Only option left is E, which maintains this meaning.

I don't know whether my reasoning is flawed or not.

PS: PM'ed an expert to comment on this SC.
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by GmatKiss » Tue Aug 16, 2011 10:29 am
IMO:E

Actually, E alone retains the original meaning and makes sense!
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by e-GMAT » Tue Aug 16, 2011 11:37 am
Meaning of the Sentence:
Agatha Christie's husband was an archaeologist. Both traveled quite a bit. Their travels inspired Agatha to write several mystery novels.

Errors in Original Sentence:
Pronoun her in "inspired her to write" does not have an antecedent. Logically "her" refers to Agatha Christie (note that we can easily place Agatha Christie in place of "her", but Agatha Christie is not used in the sentence.

Note here that pronoun her in "her archaeologist husband" is correct since here we can replace "her" with "Agatha Christie's", the noun that very well appears in the sentence.

So choice A is incorrect.

Since you guys have confusion between A and E, I will not look at choice E.

In this choice both occurrences of "her" can be replaced with "Agatha Christie's" and this antecedent exists in the sentence. Thus, there is no pronoun error here.
There is no change in the intended meaning here.
The original sentence stated that the travels or the trips inspired Agatha to write several mystery novels. This choice E states that the trips were an inspiration for several of Agatha's mystery novels.

Consider another sentence with similar context: (Don't worry about pronoun reference here. Consider this sentence a part of a paragraph)
His life experiences inspire him to write poetry.
His life experiences are an inspiration for his poetry.

Hope this helps.
Payal
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by vinayrsm » Wed Aug 17, 2011 5:52 am
Hi Payal - thanks for your explanation!

Can you share more on whether the noun is "Agatha Christie's travel" or just "Agatha Christie's" if its the latter, then what type of noun is it? I understand that Possessive Nouns show ownership like "Sarah's mother" but can "Sarah's" on its own is a Noun?
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by aspirant2011 » Wed Aug 17, 2011 9:36 am
e-GMAT wrote:Meaning of the Sentence:
Agatha Christie's husband was an archaeologist. Both traveled quite a bit. Their travels inspired Agatha to write several mystery novels.

Errors in Original Sentence:
Pronoun her in "inspired her to write" does not have an antecedent. Logically "her" refers to Agatha Christie (note that we can easily place Agatha Christie in place of "her", but Agatha Christie is not used in the sentence.

Note here that pronoun her in "her archaeologist husband" is correct since here we can replace "her" with "Agatha Christie's", the noun that very well appears in the sentence.

So choice A is incorrect.

Since you guys have confusion between A and E, I will not look at choice E.

In this choice both occurrences of "her" can be replaced with "Agatha Christie's" and this antecedent exists in the sentence. Thus, there is no pronoun error here.
There is no change in the intended meaning here.
The original sentence stated that the travels or the trips inspired Agatha to write several mystery novels. This choice E states that the trips were an inspiration for several of Agatha's mystery novels.

Consider another sentence with similar context: (Don't worry about pronoun reference here. Consider this sentence a part of a paragraph)
His life experiences inspire him to write poetry.
His life experiences are an inspiration for his poetry.

Hope this helps.
Payal
Hi Payal,

I have two small doubts here-

1. inspiration for several of Agatha's mystery novels.--------- doesn't it changes the meaning by saying that inspiration was for non living object i.e mystery novels?????

2. is inspiration for the right word or inspiration to the right word???
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by e-GMAT » Thu Aug 18, 2011 6:36 am
vinayrsm wrote:Hi Payal - thanks for your explanation!

Can you share more on whether the noun is "Agatha Christie's travel" or just "Agatha Christie's" if its the latter, then what type of noun is it? I understand that Possessive Nouns show ownership like "Sarah's mother" but can "Sarah's" on its own is a Noun?
Sarah's cannot stand by itself as a noun of a sentence. If you think about Sarah's a bit more you will realize that it stands for "of Sarah". So really speaking it is a "prepositional phrase" and not a noun. You may consider it an abbreviated special way of showing an of prepositional phrase :)

Yes at times you may omit the noun after such a possessive, but this happens only when this noun is present elsewhere in the sentence and the meaning is clear. For example:

Mary's essay was better written than Sam's. Here the noun "essay" is understood after Sam's.
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