doubt 10

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aditya8062: Legendary Member; Posts: 774; Joined: Mon Jan 23, 2012 4:32 amFollowed by: 14 members; Thanked: 46 times

by aditya8062 » Sat Sep 20, 2014 6:51 am

SC 1: The Western world's love affair with chocolate is well-documented: few people have been known to have tasted it for the first time without requesting more.
(A) few people have been known to have tasted it
(B) few having been known to taste it
(C) it has been tasted by few people
(D) few people have been known to taste it
(E) few people having tasted it

OA is D

SC 2: The fear of rabies is well founded; few people are known to recover from the disease after the appearance of the clinical symptoms.

(A) few people are known to recover from the disease after the appearance of the clinical symptoms
(B) few people are known to have recovered from the disease once the clinical symptoms have appeared
(C) there are few known people who have recovered from the disease once the clinical symptoms have appeared
(D) after the clinical symptoms appear, there are few known people who have recovered from the disease
(E) recovery from the disease is known for only a few people after the clinical symptoms appear

OA is B

my doubt: in SC 1 "present perfect infinitive" (to have tasted in option A) is wrong while the "present perfect infinitive" (to have recovered in option B) is correct in SC 2.how can we realize that when "present perfect infinitive" is correct?

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Source: Beat The GMAT — Sentence Correction | Sat Sep 20, 2014 6:51 am

GMATGuruNY: GMAT Instructor; Posts: 15539; Joined: Tue May 25, 2010 12:04 pmFollowed by: 1906 members; Location: New York, NY; Thanked: 13060 times; GMAT Score:790

by GMATGuruNY » Sat Sep 20, 2014 6:14 pm

aditya8062 wrote:my doubt: in SC 1 "present perfect infinitive" (to have tasted in option A) is wrong

A: have been known to have tasted
The perfect infinitive (to have tasted) cannot serve to modify the present perfect (have been known).

I discuss the difference between the present infinitive (to + VERB) and the perfect infinitive (to have + VERBed) here:
https://www.beatthegmat.com/past-perfect ... 04186.html

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aditya8062: Legendary Member; Posts: 774; Joined: Mon Jan 23, 2012 4:32 amFollowed by: 14 members; Thanked: 46 times

by aditya8062 » Sat Sep 20, 2014 9:51 pm

Thanks Guru for linking me to that link
if "present perfect infinitive" is oki to tell the prior action then in the following sentence:few people have been known to have tasted it --->why is it wrong to sequence the event? "to have tasted it" must have happened sometime prior in the time line

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GMATGuruNY: GMAT Instructor; Posts: 15539; Joined: Tue May 25, 2010 12:04 pmFollowed by: 1906 members; Location: New York, NY; Thanked: 13060 times; GMAT Score:790

by GMATGuruNY » Sun Sep 21, 2014 3:09 am

aditya8062 wrote:Thanks Guru for linking me to that link
if "present perfect infinitive" is oki to tell the prior action then in the following sentence:few people have been known to have tasted it --->why is it wrong to sequence the event? "to have tasted it" must have happened sometime prior in the time line

The present perfect (has/have + VERBed) serves to express an action that affects the present but takes place at an INDEFINITE moment in the past.
The perfect infinitive (to have + VERBed) serves to express an action that takes place before a FIXED moment in time (the moment when the main verb happens).
Since the perfect infinitive must modify an action that takes place at a fixed moment in time, it cannot serve to modify another perfect tense.
ALWAYS WRONG: has/have + VERBed + to have + VERBed.

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aditya8062: Legendary Member; Posts: 774; Joined: Mon Jan 23, 2012 4:32 amFollowed by: 14 members; Thanked: 46 times

by aditya8062 » Sun Sep 21, 2014 4:16 am

thanks Guru
i have one follow up question
doubt 1: will it be outright wrong to say: few people are known to recover from the disease
in other words what is the difference between

sentence 1: few people are known to recover from the disease

AND

sentence 2: few people are known to have recovered from the disease

doubt2: ALSO will sentence 2 have same meaning as sentence 3?

sentence 3 : few people have been known to recover from the disease

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GMATGuruNY: GMAT Instructor; Posts: 15539; Joined: Tue May 25, 2010 12:04 pmFollowed by: 1906 members; Location: New York, NY; Thanked: 13060 times; GMAT Score:790

by GMATGuruNY » Tue Sep 23, 2014 3:52 am

aditya8062 wrote:thanks Guru
i have one follow up question
doubt 1: will it be outright wrong to say: few people are known to recover from the disease
in other words what is the difference between

sentence 1: few people are known to recover from the disease

Here, the knowing and the recovering both take place in the present.

AND

sentence 2: few people are known to have recovered from the disease

Here, the knowing takes place in the present, while the recovering takes place in the past.

b]doubt2:[/b] ALSO will sentence 2 have same meaning as sentence 3?

sentence 3 : few people have been known to recover from the disease

Here, the knowing and the recovering both take place in the past.

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Aman Ahuja: Senior | Next Rank: 100 Posts; Posts: 37; Joined: Tue Jun 10, 2014 10:40 am; Thanked: 1 times

by Aman Ahuja » Thu Sep 25, 2014 11:13 am

Hi Guru
in the sentence 2
I eliminated choice B because I thought second "have" should have been "had" as in "once the clinical symptoms had appeared " since the symptoms appeared before the recovery
So shouldn't the order be -
1)appearance of symptoms (past perfect)
2)recovery(simple past or present perfect)

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GMATGuruNY: GMAT Instructor; Posts: 15539; Joined: Tue May 25, 2010 12:04 pmFollowed by: 1906 members; Location: New York, NY; Thanked: 13060 times; GMAT Score:790

by GMATGuruNY » Fri Sep 26, 2014 5:33 am

Aman Ahuja wrote:Hi Guru
in the sentence 2
I eliminated choice B because I thought second "have" should have been "had" as in "once the clinical symptoms had appeared " since the symptoms appeared before the recovery
So shouldn't the order be -
1)appearance of symptoms (past perfect)
2)recovery(simple past or present perfect)

B: few people are known to have recovered from the disease once the clinical symptoms have appeared
Here, two perfect tense verbs (have recovered and have appeared) cannot serve to convey successive events.
Eliminate B.

I would discourage you from trying to fix incorrect answer choices.
Many incorrect answer choices cannot be easily fixed.
Instead, focus on identifying errors.
Identifying errors is the key to answering SCs correctly.

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Aman Ahuja: Senior | Next Rank: 100 Posts; Posts: 37; Joined: Tue Jun 10, 2014 10:40 am; Thanked: 1 times

by Aman Ahuja » Fri Sep 26, 2014 9:16 am

Hi Mitch
But B is the Official answer according to the first post by aditya.
So are you saying that one of the other choices is correct or that all of the choices in sc2 are incorrect and we should ignore it.

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GMATGuruNY: GMAT Instructor; Posts: 15539; Joined: Tue May 25, 2010 12:04 pmFollowed by: 1906 members; Location: New York, NY; Thanked: 13060 times; GMAT Score:790

by GMATGuruNY » Sat Sep 27, 2014 2:30 am

Aman Ahuja wrote:Hi Mitch
But B is the Official answer according to the first post by aditya.
So are you saying that one of the other choices is correct or that all of the choices in sc2 are incorrect and we should ignore it.

I would ignore SC2.

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Aman Ahuja: Senior | Next Rank: 100 Posts; Posts: 37; Joined: Tue Jun 10, 2014 10:40 am; Thanked: 1 times

by Aman Ahuja » Sat Sep 27, 2014 8:48 am

Thank you Mitch

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