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Kaplan CR

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by paridhi » Thu Jul 01, 2010 7:46 am
The 19 th century Russian composers known as "The Five" were united by their holding an ideal of a national music based on folk melodies and themes.

a).........
b) had as their uniting ideal
c) united each other with
d) united based on
e) were united with

[spoiler]OA : D[/spoiler]
Can someone please explain? I did not even understand the explanation given in the book
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by ayushiiitm » Thu Jul 01, 2010 7:53 am
imo e
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by ayushiiitm » Thu Jul 01, 2010 7:54 am
imo e
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by kvcpk » Thu Jul 01, 2010 8:10 am
Looks like a tough one to me.. Will wait for others to respond.
For a guess, I would have chosen B.

By typing the title as "kaplan CR" for a SC question, I can imagine how disappointed you are with this question :) ;)
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by adi_800 » Thu Jul 01, 2010 8:31 am
Kaplan SCs...always Fishy..
On GMAT...
there are proper reasons to eliminate 4 wrong options and one correct answer stands out...
Here you can't find a choice that perfectly stands out gramatically..
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by loveusonu » Thu Jul 01, 2010 9:03 am
d) united based on
e) were united with

Ths structure is most similar to:

1>The composers United...
2>The composers were United...

In 1, the verb is main united and require Noun\object just after that, which doesn't seem to be the case.
In 2, 'were' is Aux verb here, hence we can continue with rest of the sentence.

IMO E.
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by 786 » Thu Jul 01, 2010 12:37 pm
OA cannot be D .
Option D does not have a working verb .

I will go with E .
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by KapTeacherEli » Thu Jul 01, 2010 1:36 pm
Hi paridhi,

There seems to be some confusion about the explanation and OA for this problem; can you give me the exact source and problem number so I can look into it?

Thanks!
Eli Meyer
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www.kaptest.com/gmat

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by paridhi » Fri Jul 02, 2010 10:45 pm
KapTeacherEli wrote:Hi paridhi,

There seems to be some confusion about the explanation and OA for this problem; can you give me the exact source and problem number so I can look into it?

Thanks!
The sentence is from Kaplan GMAT Verbal Workbook (4th ed.) Q19.

The explanation given is:
(a)'s wrong: You dont say people were "united by their holding" (B) unnecessarily repeats "ideal". In (C), what does it mean to say rge composers "united each other"? This makes no sense. In (E), the composers didn't unite with the ideal. (d)'s the only choice that makes sense :shock:
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by pradeepkaushal9518 » Sat Jul 03, 2010 2:33 am
paridhi D is correct

the five is not a number of persons required were. the name of the composer "the five".
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by pdarun » Sat Jul 03, 2010 2:52 am
pradeepkaushal9518 wrote:paridhi D is correct

the five is not a number of persons required were. the name of the composer "the five".
The 19 th century Russian composers known as "The Five"
Were is required not because of "The Five" but because of composers.

I dont get why OA is D. My choice is E
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by loveusonu » Sat Jul 03, 2010 4:59 am
Hi KapTeacherEli,

Could you please explain?
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by KapTeacherEli » Sat Jul 03, 2010 10:16 pm
(A) In addition to the awkwardness of the word 'holding' here, this sentence uses the passive voice (were united by). The GMAT will on occasion use the passive voice in a correct answer, but we should always be suspicious of it and select it only if we are out of better options.

(B) Repeats 'Ideal'

(C) Idiom error. The correct idiom would be 'united with each other'. Note that even with the correct idiom, this choice would probably be ruled out; if they united, then by definition the joined with each other, so this answer contains redundant information.

(E) Incorrect idiom; 'united with' an ideal means the five composers and the one ideal all formed a single, cohesive group--and obviously, an idea can't join a group of composers.

(D) is therefore correct. If we're not sure why, Kaplan's strategic reading tip is to focus on the subject/verb of the sentence. With (D), the main subject is 'the composers' and the verb is 'united'. Excising all adjectives, descriptions, and description prepositional phrases, we get the following core of a sentence: "The....composers...united based on an ideal..." This is grammatically sound, and the correct answer.
Eli Meyer
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