Rivaling the pyramids of Egypt- Modifier Issue

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Rivaling the pyramids of Egypt or even the ancient cities of the Maya as an achievement, the army of terra-cotta warriors created to protect Qin Shi Huang,China's fi rst emperor, in his afterlife is more than 2,000 years old and took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete.

(A) the army of terra-cotta warriors created to protect Qin Shi Huang, China's fi rst emperor, in his afterlife is more than 2,000 years old and took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete
(B) Qin Shi Huang, China's fi rst emperor, was protected in his afterlife by an army of terracotta
warriors that was created more than 2,000 years ago by 700,000 artisans who took more than 36 years to complete it
(C) it took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to create an army of terra-cotta warriors more than
2,000 years ago that would protect Qin Shi Huang, China's fi rst emperor, in his afterlife
(D) more than 2,000 years ago, 700,000 artisans worked more than 36 years to create an army of
terra-cotta warriors to protect Qin Shi Huang, China's fi rst emperor, in his afterlife
(E) more than 36 years were needed to complete the army of terra-cotta warriors that 700,000
artisans created 2,000 years ago to protect Qin Shi Huang, China's fi rst emperor, in his afterlife.

Can some one explain what is wrong with B
What does rivaling mean in this context.
As per dictionary. It says ' 'a person who is competing for the same object as another' Though they are other meanings as well.

B also looked ok for me. Except for the it at end was not required.
Can we have a
Modifer, subject in passive form. (Is that the error in B)

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by Brian@VeritasPrep » Mon Nov 21, 2011 2:11 pm
Hey abc,

"Rivaling" here means "like", in way - "rivaling" is used in this case to mean "similar in excellence to". For example you could say:

Rivaling Harvard and Stanford for admissions selectiveness, UC-Berkeley credits its desirable Northern Californian location for its high volume of MBA applications each year.

or

Google Plus hopes to rival Facebook as a leading provider of social networking services.

_____________________________________________________________

Now, all that said, even if you don't know "rivaling" as a definition, you should still have a pretty good idea that the introductory phrase is a modifier. It is separated by a comma, acts only as a description, and the comma touches the underlined portion of the sentence. In that situation, there's an incredibly high probability that you're dealing with a modifier issue first and foremost. And "Qin Shi Huang" isn't an achievement, so he can't logically be modified by that phrase. The terra cotta army is an achievement - it's what the artisans spent 36 years working on, which is similar to pyramids and ancient cities...it's a grand undertaking that has stood the test of time.
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by Stuart@KaplanGMAT » Mon Nov 21, 2011 3:33 pm
Hi!

B makes the same mistake as do C, D and E - they all have a giant misplaced modifier. If you recognize that issue (and it's one of the "big 5" grammar issues tested on the GMAT, so you need to be a Master of Modification by test day), then this becomes a 15-30 second question.

Whenever a sentence contains a modifying introductory or concluding phrase, then whatever that phrase is describing must come immediately on the other side of the comma. Here's the general syntax in both cases:

[Modifying phrase], [whatever the phrase is modifying]

or

[whatever the phrase is modifying], [modifying phrase].

In this particular question, we have the introductory modifying phrase "Rivaling the pyramids of Egypt or even the ancient cities of the Maya as an achievement," - so whatever rivals the pyramids must come immediately after the comma. Since the only logical rival for the pyramids/ancient cities is another ancient wonder, we must start the underlined part of the sentence with "the army of terra cotta warriors". Only (A) does this properly, so the original sentence is correct as written.

Going through the wrong choices:

(b) says that Qi Shi Huang himself is like the pyramids - eliminate.

(c) says that "it took 7000 artisans"... is like the pyramids - eliminate.

(d) says that "more than 2,000 years ago" is like the pyramids - eliminate.

(e) says that "more than 36 years were needed..." is like the pyramids - eliminate.



abcgmat wrote:Rivaling the pyramids of Egypt or even the ancient cities of the Maya as an achievement, the army of terra-cotta warriors created to protect Qin Shi Huang,China's fi rst emperor, in his afterlife is more than 2,000 years old and took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete.

(A) the army of terra-cotta warriors created to protect Qin Shi Huang, China's fi rst emperor, in his afterlife is more than 2,000 years old and took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete
(B) Qin Shi Huang, China's fi rst emperor, was protected in his afterlife by an army of terracotta
warriors that was created more than 2,000 years ago by 700,000 artisans who took more than 36 years to complete it
(C) it took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to create an army of terra-cotta warriors more than
2,000 years ago that would protect Qin Shi Huang, China's fi rst emperor, in his afterlife
(D) more than 2,000 years ago, 700,000 artisans worked more than 36 years to create an army of
terra-cotta warriors to protect Qin Shi Huang, China's fi rst emperor, in his afterlife
(E) more than 36 years were needed to complete the army of terra-cotta warriors that 700,000
artisans created 2,000 years ago to protect Qin Shi Huang, China's fi rst emperor, in his afterlife.

Can some one explain what is wrong with B
What does rivaling mean in this context.
As per dictionary. It says ' 'a person who is competing for the same object as another' Though they are other meanings as well.

B also looked ok for me. Except for the it at end was not required.
Can we have a
Modifer, subject in passive form. (Is that the error in B)
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by karthikgmat » Tue Nov 22, 2011 8:31 am
Many thanks Brian.