Sentence Correction

atulmangal wrote:

GMATGuruNY wrote:

atulmangal wrote:Golding's most famous novel concerns little boys, once a well-behaved and civilized group, whose resort to murder and savagery during their brief time on a tropical island without adult supervision.

A)once a well-behaved and civilized group, whose
B)once well-behaved and civilized, who
C)once a well-behaved and civilized herd, who
D)once civilized and well-behaved, whose
E)behaved and civilized, who

Above is the correct version of this SC. The original post did not reproduce the answer choices correctly.

In A and D, the subject boys lacks a verb, resulting in a sentence fragment. Eliminate A and D.

E changes the meaning. Omitting once implies that the boys are behaved and civilized when they resort to murder. The intended meaning is that the boys were once well-behaved and civilized but are not well-behaved and civilized when they resort to murder. Eliminate E.

In C, the introduction of herd changes the meaning. Also, the referent of who is unclear. Who seems to refer -- incorrectly -- to herd, but the plural pronoun their implies that who refers to boys. If the referent of a pronoun is unclear, and another answer choice avoids the ambiguity, eliminate the answer choice with the ambiguity. Eliminate C.

The correct answer is B.

Please note that the SC above does not have the feel of a real GMAT SC. The differences among the answer choices are too subtle.

Thanks Mitch for the correction in question
I still have one confusion if u can please clear....the confusion is regarding the use of THEN in choice B....although many people posted that use of THEN is INCORRECT but i still didn't get that feel
can't we see the structure of the sentence in this way---> the boys were once well behaved and after that (THEN) they turned to Murder etc....??? can u shed some light in this regard...if possible with an example using the word THEN correctly...

Thanks
Atul

GMATGuruNY wrote:

atulmangal wrote:

GMATGuruNY wrote:

atulmangal wrote:Golding's most famous novel concerns little boys, once a well-behaved and civilized group, whose resort to murder and savagery during their brief time on a tropical island without adult supervision.

A)once a well-behaved and civilized group, whose
B)once well-behaved and civilized, who
C)once a well-behaved and civilized herd, who
D)once civilized and well-behaved, whose
E)behaved and civilized, who

Above is the correct version of this SC. The original post did not reproduce the answer choices correctly.

In A and D, the subject boys lacks a verb, resulting in a sentence fragment. Eliminate A and D.

E changes the meaning. Omitting once implies that the boys are behaved and civilized when they resort to murder. The intended meaning is that the boys were once well-behaved and civilized but are not well-behaved and civilized when they resort to murder. Eliminate E.

In C, the introduction of herd changes the meaning. Also, the referent of who is unclear. Who seems to refer -- incorrectly -- to herd, but the plural pronoun their implies that who refers to boys. If the referent of a pronoun is unclear, and another answer choice avoids the ambiguity, eliminate the answer choice with the ambiguity. Eliminate C.

The correct answer is B.

Please note that the SC above does not have the feel of a real GMAT SC. The differences among the answer choices are too subtle.

Thanks Mitch for the correction in question
I still have one confusion if u can please clear....the confusion is regarding the use of THEN in choice B....although many people posted that use of THEN is INCORRECT but i still didn't get that feel
can't we see the structure of the sentence in this way---> the boys were once well behaved and after that (THEN) they turned to Murder etc....??? can u shed some light in this regard...if possible with an example using the word THEN correctly...

Thanks
Atul

In answer choice B (as it was originally posted), the use of then results in a comparison that lacks parallelism:

...once well-behaved....who then resort...

Whereas once is modifying an adjective (well-behaved), then is modifying a verb (resort). The lack of parallelism is awkward.