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When a passenger aircraft crashed...

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When a passenger aircraft crashed...

by giovanni.gastone » Tue May 24, 2011 1:08 pm
Source: Veritas

When a passenger aircraft crashed in the jungles near the village of Triskiti, local tribesmen collected pieces of the broken plane before they could be carefully examined where they had fallen, unintentionally thwarting the efforts of investigators that already were made difficult by the remoteness of the crash site.

A. unintentionally thwarting the efforts of investigators that already were made difficult by the remoteness of
B. unintentionally thwarting the efforts of investigators, which already were made difficult by the remoteness of
C. unintentionally thwarting the efforts of investigators, that had already been made difficult by the remoteness of
D. unintentionally thwarting the efforts of investigators, and already made difficult by the remoteness of
E. unintentionally thwarting the efforts of investigators, and already made difficult by the remote location of

This came from a Veritas CAT. I'm curious what people think is the right answer.
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by vineeshp » Wed May 25, 2011 3:11 am
It is between A and C. I am totally confused.

in A, that already were made difficult sounds awkward to me.
in C, investigators, that had already been made difficult seems to be using that as a non essential modifier but still sounds better than A.

What is the OA? Wat a question!
Vineesh,
Just telling you what I know and think. I am not the expert. :)
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by HSPA » Wed May 25, 2011 3:16 am
I am with B because I beleive
which = efforts of investigators and not just investigators

A, B are the only contenders
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by only800 » Wed May 25, 2011 4:13 am
Only contender are A & C

1. C is grammatically wrong as "that" can not follow a comma.

2. unintentionally thwarting the efforts of investigators -> present continuous
therefore there is no reason that to use past perfect tense "that had already been made difficult by the remoteness of" as used in C

so A should be correct
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by sameerballani » Wed May 25, 2011 4:58 am
I feel the answer is option A. Could you please tell the correct answer?
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by bubbliiiiiiii » Wed May 25, 2011 5:06 am
When a passenger aircraft crashed in the jungles near the village of Triskiti, local tribesmen collected pieces of the broken plane before they could be carefully examined where they had fallen, unintentionally thwarting the efforts of investigators that already were made difficult by the remoteness of the crash site.

A. unintentionally thwarting the efforts of investigators that already were made difficult by the remoteness of B. unintentionally thwarting the efforts of investigators, which already were made difficult by the remoteness of
C. unintentionally thwarting the efforts of investigators, that had already been made difficult by the remoteness of
D. unintentionally thwarting the efforts of investigators, and already made difficult by the remoteness of
E. unintentionally thwarting the efforts of investigators, and already made difficult by the remote location of

Please correct if wrong.
Regards,

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by Frankenstein » Wed May 25, 2011 8:03 am
Hi,
IMO, A
D,E are out because of 'and'
C is out because of comma before 'that'. Comma can be used before that if that comma belongs to a modifier
B - I think it is out because which should be closest to the thing it refers to.

Expert opinions would be appreciated.

Cheers!
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by giovanni.gastone » Wed May 25, 2011 8:27 am
The answer is B, folks. I had selected A as well because I didn't think "which" in B clearly referred to the efforts of investigators but the test maker of Veritas apparently believes it does.

Does anyone know a good source on how "which" is used?

Choice C is eliminated for the wordiness of "that had already been made."
Choice B is selected over Choice A because the last clause is a nonrestrictive clause that should be introduced with "which".
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by aspirant2011 » Wed May 25, 2011 9:08 am
yup I also chose B on reading the question because of the same reason of "which" representing non restrictive clause...........C is wrong because of comma + that construction and A is wrong because of the use of "that were".........in A this part is not necessary as we have already completed the sentence by introduction of "unintentionally thwarting"
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by wayofjungle » Wed May 25, 2011 8:39 pm
yes the answer is B because 'which' is used as a non-essential clause in which a comma is always required. Choice A is not correct because the pronoun 'they' is unambiguous and may refer to investigators.
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by atulmangal » Wed May 25, 2011 9:05 pm
My pick was Op B, and its good to see its correct.

Only A and B are contenders, but why B and Not A.

From, one of the Ron's post, almost always WHICH refers to preceding NOUN PHRASE if its there otherwise to the preceding NOUN...here the NOUN PHRASE is " efforts of investigators" which has to be the subject of the next clause...

Why THAT is wrong...here IMO THAT is introducing the RELATIVE CLAUSE and modifying the whole preceding clause so it feels like:

"unintentionally thwarting the efforts of investigators " is the subject of the VERB "were"...and thats wrong.
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by nafiul9090 » Thu May 26, 2011 8:45 pm
atulmangal wrote:My pick was Op B, and its good to see its correct.

Only A and B are contenders, but why B and Not A.

From, one of the Ron's post, almost always WHICH refers to preceding NOUN PHRASE if its there otherwise to the preceding NOUN...here the NOUN PHRASE is " efforts of investigators" which has to be the subject of the next clause...

Why THAT is wrong...here IMO THAT is introducing the RELATIVE CLAUSE and modifying the whole preceding clause so it feels like:

"unintentionally thwarting the efforts of investigators " is the subject of the VERB "were"...and thats wrong.
hi atul,

nice nice explanation. could you please elaborate the comparison a bit further between Whichand that


regards

nafi
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by lunarpower » Fri May 27, 2011 12:33 am
(b) is the best of the choices here, although it's still sort of weird.
(for instance, the sentence is saying that "the efforts of investigators were difficult" -- this doesn't make any literal sense. the sentence should say that the task of investigation was difficult; an effort can't be difficult.)

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the simplest way to understand WHICH after NOUN1 + PREP + NOUN2 is to understand that WHICH can stand for either of the following:
* NOUN2
* the whole NOUN1 + PREP + NOUN2
if either one of these is a common-sense referent for the modifier, creating a clear meaning, then the sentence is ok.

in this case, NOUN1 + PREP + NOUN2 is the referent, so we're good.
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