Sentence Correction

American's love affair with the Mustang is readily apparent: few americans have been known to have driven it for the first time without taking it for another spin.

A) few americans have been known to have driven it
B) few having been known to drive it
C) few americans have been known to drive it
D) it has been driven by few americans
E) few americans having driven it

OA will be posted later.Please discuss each answer choice in detail

IMO:C

B & D are out because wrong subject, without putting "few Americans" after colon, the subject for this sentence would be American's love which makes no sense by saying love can drive the car.


A is wordy by adding have driven it

E is wrong by using having driven


This is just my 2 cents

ranjithreddy.k9 wrote:American's love affair with the Mustang is readily apparent: few americans have been known to have driven it for the first time without taking it for another spin.

A) few americans have been known to have driven it
B) few having been known to drive it
C) few americans have been known to drive it
D) it has been driven by few americans
E) few americans having driven it

OA will be posted later.Please discuss each answer choice in detail

I would go with A because usage of have is appropriate over here as it indicates that americans drove it earlier and presently we know those few americans have driven it

Teetering between A and C

aspirant2011 wrote:

ranjithreddy.k9 wrote:American's love affair with the Mustang is readily apparent: few americans have been known to have driven it for the first time without taking it for another spin.

A) few americans have been known to have driven it
B) few having been known to drive it
C) few americans have been known to drive it
D) it has been driven by few americans
E) few americans having driven it

OA will be posted later.Please discuss each answer choice in detail

I would go with A because usage of have is appropriate over here as it indicates that americans drove it earlier and presently we know those few americans have driven it

Agree on all counts. C is wrong because it presents the knowing and driving in the same tense;however , he is presenting a fact that is know today but the fact itself was in past.

OA is C guys

IMO E.
I think I missed this one.
Was bit confused between C and E.

Hi Ranjithreddy,

request you to pm an expert so that we all can get clarity on the same......

A) few americans have been known to have driven it - correct construction is are known + infinitive
B) few having been known to drive it - verb phrase is preferred (required?) after colon
C) few americans have been known to drive it - uses active verb phrase with correct are known + infinitive construction
D) it has been driven by few americans - passive phrase not parallel with "without taking it for another spin"
E) few americans having driven it - verb phrase preferred after colon

ranjithreddy.k9 wrote:American's love affair with the Mustang is readily apparent: few americans have been known to have driven it for the first time without taking it for another spin.

A) few americans have been known to have driven it
B) few having been known to drive it
C) few americans have been known to drive it
D) it has been driven by few americans
E) few americans having driven it

OA will be posted later.Please discuss each answer choice in detail

C it is here. The battle seems to be between C and A, so I'll just address that. One thing that makes this sentence trickier to think about is that we've got "have been known" as a passive present perfect construction... and the fact that it's passive is totally irrelevant to the discussion here... so let's change it to active present perfect just to make it easier to examine. If we do that,

(A) becomes something like "I have known few to have driven it" and
(C) becomes something like "I have known few to drive it"

So the knowing is already in a perfect tense, and we *don't* need to situate the driving at a point that falls even deeper in the past, so there's no need for the perfect infinitive "to have driven."

It's perhaps still simpler to think about if you replace "known...to" with "seen." (Then seen will take the infinite of whatever verb follows -- specifically, the version of the infinitive that drops the "to.") Would you say

(A) I have seen few have driven it or
(C) I have seen few drive it

Certainly (C), because the driving and seeing are contemporaneous. The driving (or whatever verb you put there) refers to what you "have seen," so it is by default in the timeframe established by "have seen." If you want to keep it in that timeframe, you just use the regular simple infinitive. Only if you need to situate it in an even earlier timeframe to you go into perfect infinitive for it -- in which case it becomes a perfect of a perfect.

On a different and minor note, there's another error in the original sentence: it should start Americans' rather than American's, since this is a plural possessive (the love affair belongs to plural Americans).

C does seem to be better than A. But C and A have a suble difference in the meaning.
So is'nt it wrong not to retain the original meaning.

Eg : Few have been known to have to seen the tsunami .. plz clarify if im wrong

Ashley@VeritasPrep

GREAT, thank you a lot

But I wish you to comment on the following sentence

TODAY HE IS KNOWN TO HAVE DRIVEN THE CAR.

please, talk about the time in "is" and the time in " have driven".

ANYONE, PLEASE, HELP.

duongthang wrote:Ashley@VeritasPrep

GREAT, thank you a lot

But I wish you to comment on the following sentence

TODAY HE IS KNOWN TO HAVE DRIVEN THE CAR.

please, talk about the time in "is" and the time in " have driven".

ANYONE, PLEASE, HELP.

I feel it means that the guy is known today for driving the car somewhere in the past.......

Ashley@VeritasPrep wrote: On a different and minor note, there's another error in the original sentence: it should start Americans' rather than American's, since this is a plural possessive (the love affair belongs to plural Americans).

Hi Ashley,

Does it mean that the sentence is wrong because of american's????????

duongthang wrote:Ashley@VeritasPrep

GREAT, thank you a lot

But I wish you to comment on the following sentence

TODAY HE IS KNOWN TO HAVE DRIVEN THE CAR.

please, talk about the time in "is" and the time in " have driven".

ANYONE, PLEASE, HELP.

Yes, as aspirant2011 says, this sentence would mean that once upon a time, or even for a long time, people thought that this guy never drove the car (in the past), but today, we know that he did drive it sometime in the past. It does *not* mean that he drove the car "today" -- the "today" only stretches over the first verb in the sentence. In contrast, "He is known to have driven the car today" would mean that now (say, in the evening) we know that he drove the car earlier today.