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Doubt SC

by prachi18oct » Tue Jan 06, 2015 10:30 am
A & E straight away out
B ; sinc the subject is each of the forcesi.e singular - were is wrong .
D : I believe is wrong since the intent of the sentence is to stress that the allied forces united against Germany and not that they were culturally and diverse nations.
Please explain!

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by MartyMurray » Tue Jan 06, 2015 12:01 pm
prachi18oct wrote:A & E straight away out
B ; sinc the subject is each of the forcesi.e singular - were is wrong .
D : I believe is wrong since the intent of the sentence is to stress that the allied forces united against Germany and not that they were culturally and diverse nations.
Please explain!

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This question seems a little flawed. Anyway, here's my take.

A) every one does not agree with verb were. Eliminate.

B) Each does not agree with verb were. Eliminate.

C) This is where it gets a little sketchy. We could possibly see this as a phrase with no verb, or we could somehow stretch to consider it an awkward sentence with united as the verb, and so we could make it work. I guess it could be eliminated, but I am not sure.

D) Subject and verb agree. I would prefer that there be no comma before united, but it works ok. Maybe this is the OA. Having said that,the emphasis is a little different from that of the original sentence and that comma before united is an issue too.

E) The beginning of this is a little awkward. Also, maybe there is a meaning issue; is the sentence supposed to be about diverse nations or nations with diversity?

I guess maaaaaaybe D is the best, but I see what you mean. Is the sentence basically nations were diverse, or diverse nations were united?

This question is weak and if I were in your position I would be sending an email to Kaplan telling them so.
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by [email protected] » Fri Jan 09, 2015 4:07 pm
Hi prachi18oct,

There area a couple of problems with answer C and they're both subtle:

1) The pronoun "their" (a "plural", in the non-underlined portion of the sentence) doesn't match with the word "each" (a "singular" in the prior phrase).

2) The description "Culturally and politically diverse nations - " is MEANT to describe these nations in the past (during World War II). As it's written here, it appears to describe those nations in the present. The INTENT is that these diverse nations from THAT time united against Germany; the current state of those nations doesn't seem relevant.

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by prachi18oct » Sun Jan 11, 2015 10:07 pm
Hi Rich,

I understand C has those flaws but still I am not able to understand how D is correct?
The part before the comma seems correct and also subject-verb agree but the comma makes it weird.
Should it not be like this ..The Allied Forces in WW II -F,GB,SU and US- culturally and politically diverse nations, united in their war against Germany.

Pls explain how D may be correct here?
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by [email protected] » Sun Jan 11, 2015 11:28 pm
Hi prachti18oct,

The two "dashes" in the sentence (and in Answer D) serve the same purpose as commas. In this case, they're used to introduce modifying phrases (and keep the sentence from looking "comma heavy").

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by GMATGuruNY » Mon Jan 12, 2015 4:05 am
prachi18oct wrote:Hi Rich,

I understand C has those flaws but still I am not able to understand how D is correct?
The part before the comma seems correct and also subject-verb agree but the comma makes it weird.
Should it not be like this ..The Allied Forces in WW II -F,GB,SU and US- culturally and politically diverse nations, united in their war against Germany.

Pls explain how D may be correct here?
When a portion of a sentence is enclosed by dashes, the dashes function like parentheses, implying that the enclosed portion is a PARENTHETICAL THOUGHT.
Generally, the enclosed portion can be removed without altering the core meaning of the sentence.
Answer choice D, with the portion between the dashes omitted:
The Allied Forces in WWII were culturally and politically diverse nations, united in their common fight against Germany.
This sentence expresses a complete thought, with united serving as an adjective modifying the culturally and politically diverse nations.

For an official SC that tests the use of dashes, check here:
https://www.beatthegmat.com/og-13-132-t168495.html
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