patanjali.purpose wrote:Congress has enacted legislation forbidding state and local governments from raising taxes on connections that link consumers to the Internet for the next three years.

A) forbidding state and local governments from raising taxes on connections that link consumers to the Internet for the next three years

B) that forbids state and local governments for the next three years from raising taxes on connections that link consumers to the Internet

C) that for the next three years forbids state and local governments to raise taxes on connections that link consumers to the Internet

D) forbidding for the next three years to state and local governments the raising of taxes on connections that link consumers to the Internet

E) that forbids for the next three years state and local governments from raising taxes on connections that link consumers to the Internet

MGMAT OA-C

Pls explain the correct/incorrect usage of prepositional phrase "for the next three years". in each of the options.

Idiom error is known - and therefore you can ignore for our discussion

patanjali.purpose wrote: Idiom error is known - and therefore you can ignore for our discussion

I intend to learn an important concept about prepositional phrases - pls share your views/knowledge.

What does "for the next three years" modifies in A - does it modify IMMEDDIATE PRECEEDING NOUN ie INTERNET or IMMEDIATE PRECEEDING VERB ie LINK. Can we drop this choice because of the ambiguity with what does prep ph (for...years) modify?

Similarly can we say that in B - "for the next three years" can modify either FORBIDS or STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENTS and therefore ambiguous.

Such ambiguity is not there in C because "for the next three years" is sitting close to FORBIDS and not at all attached with (not near) STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENTS. Is this a correct interpretation?

lunarpower wrote:for instance, both of the following sentences are correct:
i read the book on the table (in which "on the table" modifies the noun "book")
i read the book on the subway (in which "on the subway" modifies the action of reading the book, not the book itself)
there's no contradiction here, even though these sentences work differently from each other, because the meaning is absolutely clear in each case. also, each prepositional phrase is placed as close as possible to the thing that it's actually describing.

bubbliiiiiiii wrote:Given the OA as C, I am trying to find out how B and C differ?

Can anyone please help?