34. Japan is a culture of accommodation and constraint, a system of forms, etiquette, and images, making its ever-present congestion tolerable.
(A) Japan is a culture of accommodation and constraint, a system of forms, etiquette, and images, making its
(B) Japan, a culture of accommodation and constraint, is a system of forms, etiquette, and images, which makes its
(C) A culture of accommodation and constraint, Japan is a system of forms, etiquette, and images making its
(D) Japan's is a culture of accommodation and constraint, a system of forms, etiquette, and images that makes the
(E) Japan's is a culture of accommodation and constraint, of a system of forms, etiquette, and images which makes the
Brutal SC 34
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Option A is correct as it explains the fact that Japan has those characteristics listed before it and established that in a simple non-wordy way.
Thus, this is the correct answer.
Option B.
This option looks correct but it is flawed by the absence of 'is' to connect the subject and the rest of the sentence.
Option C.
The poorly constructed sentence thus, this option is incorrect.
Option D.
Wrong subject od the sentence. Japan's = Japan is. Therefore, it is wrong to say Japan's is
This option is wrong
Option E.
This option suffers the same fate as option D above.
Thus, this is the correct answer.
Option B.
This option looks correct but it is flawed by the absence of 'is' to connect the subject and the rest of the sentence.
Option C.
The poorly constructed sentence thus, this option is incorrect.
Option D.
Wrong subject od the sentence. Japan's = Japan is. Therefore, it is wrong to say Japan's is
This option is wrong
Option E.
This option suffers the same fate as option D above.
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Jangojess is correct in their analysis of this problem - Japan is not a culture; Japan HAS a culture. Because of this modifier issue, we can rule out A, B, and C. D and E, on the other hand, use "Japan's is a culture of ...", where the possessive Japan's implies "Japan's [culture] is a culture of ...". This makes more sense.
This leaves us with D and E. If we see that "which" does not have a comma before it in E, we can eliminate it right off the bat - "which" will always come after a comma. However, there is an additional problem with E. We notice that E includes the word "of" twice.
So while D can be interpreted as:
Japan's [culture] is a culture of accommodation and constraint. [Japan's culture is] a system of forms, etiquette, and images that makes the ever-present congestion tolerable.
E on the other hand can be interpreted as:
Japan's is a culture of accommodation and constraint. [Japan's culture is a culture] of a system of forms, etiquette, and images which makes the ever-present congestion tolerable.
This makes E somewhat redundant and different in meaning than the original sentence. So we can rule out E and select D.
This leaves us with D and E. If we see that "which" does not have a comma before it in E, we can eliminate it right off the bat - "which" will always come after a comma. However, there is an additional problem with E. We notice that E includes the word "of" twice.
So while D can be interpreted as:
Japan's [culture] is a culture of accommodation and constraint. [Japan's culture is] a system of forms, etiquette, and images that makes the ever-present congestion tolerable.
E on the other hand can be interpreted as:
Japan's is a culture of accommodation and constraint. [Japan's culture is a culture] of a system of forms, etiquette, and images which makes the ever-present congestion tolerable.
This makes E somewhat redundant and different in meaning than the original sentence. So we can rule out E and select D.
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