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SC Question from Aristotle Prep

by magpie16 » Sat May 25, 2013 9:57 pm
The books of Chetan Bhagat, which are available in both soft as well as hard cover, are more popular than those of any other Indian Writer.

(A) The books of Chetan Bhagat, which are available in both soft as well as hard cover, are more popular than those of any other Indian Writer
(B) Chetan Bhagat's books, which are available in both soft as well as hard cover, are more popular than that of any Indian Writer
(C) The books of Chetan Bhagat that are available in both soft as well as hard cover are more popular than those of any Indian Writer
(D) Chetan Bhagat's books, which are available in both soft as well as hard cover, more popular than that of any other Indian Writer
(E) More popular than any other Indian Writer, the books of Chetan Bhagat are available in both soft as well as hard cover

===================================================================================================
This question is from Aristotle Prep and this question gave me a hard time to choose the correct answer. My analyses on each answer choice are as follows:

A)
- "Both X as well as Y" is not idiomatic; correct idiomatic form is "both X and Y".

B)
- "Both X as well as Y" is not idiomatic; correct idiomatic form is "both X and Y".
- Singular "that" has the plural antecedent "books"; here "those" is needed in place of "that".
- As Chetan Bhagat is a Indian Writer, here the sentence means that the books of Chetan Bhagat are more popular than the books of Chetan Bhagat itself! The sentence needs to have "other" before "Indian Writer".

C)
- First "that" in the sentence is a restrictive "that" which is used inappropriately; here the sentence needs non-restrictive "which" as all books of Chetan Bhagat are taken as a whole.
- As Chetan Bhagat is a Indian Writer, here the sentence means that the books of Chetan Bhagat are more popular than the books of Chetan Bhagat itself! The sentence needs to have "other" before "Indian Writer".

D)
- The sentence is a fragment without main verb; the sentence needs to have "are" before "more popular than ...".

E)
- Illogical comparison between "Indian Writer" and "books of Chetan Bhagat".


As can be seen here, no answer choice is totally correct. Options B and C can be taken out as both of those got many problems. Option D also can be removed as the option got serious grammatical error. We are left out with options A and E.

While we are stuck between last two choices, we consider grammatical mistakes most important, next comes clarity, and the last one is concision.

Here option A falls under grammatical mistake and option E falls under clarity issue. In cases like this question, When I have to pick the best option from two equally qualified (or equally unqualified) options, I find it difficult! I would like to give equal negative marks to those two options.

I am requesting the experts to provide opinion on this problem.

PS: I am not providing the official answer at this moment so as to get unbiased feedback.


[spoiler]OA: After one day[/spoiler]
Last edited by magpie16 on Sat May 25, 2013 10:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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by srcc25anu » Sun May 26, 2013 12:21 pm
IMO B

A. which wrongly modifies Chetan Bhagat, not the books
C. Again THAT modifies Chetan Bhagat, If the construction was something like "the books that Chetan Bhagat authored" It would have been more convincing.
D.This is a run on sentence - CB's books .... <<are>> more popular than ...
E."More popular than any other writer" - what comes after this should be the author himself - in this case Chetan Bhagat.

That leaves us with B by POE
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by magpie16 » Sun May 26, 2013 5:32 pm
srcc25anu wrote:IMO B

A. which wrongly modifies Chetan Bhagat, not the books
C. Again THAT modifies Chetan Bhagat, If the construction was something like "the books that Chetan Bhagat authored" It would have been more convincing.
D.This is a run on sentence - CB's books .... <<are>> more popular than ...
E."More popular than any other writer" - what comes after this should be the author himself - in this case Chetan Bhagat.

That leaves us with B by POE
Options B and C have so many problems, those must be dropped at the very beginning. Option B can never be the answer. In my post, I did a detailed analysis on each choice.
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by David@VeritasPrep » Sun May 26, 2013 5:42 pm
Magpie - I think that you are correct. Where is the correct answer here? There is no correct answer.

There are misplaced relative clauses, incorrect singular/ plural (with that when we need those), incorrect comparison with "both...as well as...

If these answers are transcribed correctly there is no correct answer, in my opinion.
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by magpie16 » Sun May 26, 2013 5:50 pm
David@VeritasPrep wrote:Magpie - I think that you are correct. Where is the correct answer here? There is no correct answer.

There are misplaced relative clauses, incorrect singular/ plural (with that when we need those), incorrect comparison with "both...as well as...

If these answers are transcribed correctly there is no correct answer, in my opinion.
Hi David, Thank you for your response as I was looking for a second opinion. :)

The answer given is option A and I know for sure none of the choices can be picked confidently. There are cases where two options can be found as close tie, still we can find one to have less serious problem to be considered best choice. But, this case dumbfounded me! :)

To confirm you, the question is exactly as found from the source without a single change. (During practice, I was trying to find if there is anything that I am missing similar to as you are thinking that if the question is typed correctly.)
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by David@VeritasPrep » Sun May 26, 2013 6:12 pm
If there are two answers that are both grammatically and logically correct, then you have to choose between the two.

I doubt that there will be a question on the GMAT that has two answers that are both wrong but equally wrong and you have to choose between the two. So do not worry!
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by magpie16 » Sun May 26, 2013 6:42 pm
David@VeritasPrep wrote:If there are two answers that are both grammatically and logically correct, then you have to choose between the two.

I doubt that there will be a question on the GMAT that has two answers that are both wrong but equally wrong and you have to choose between the two. So do not worry!
I agree that GMAC does not set any question that have two equally wrong options. This type of problems sometimes arises with non-GMAC questions.

On the other hand, GMAC sets question in such a way that sometimes we perceive incorrect options as correct ones and there we fall into trap!
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by magpie16 » Mon May 27, 2013 8:05 pm
OA is A
(though it is an incorrect sentence)
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by vivekchandrams » Thu May 30, 2013 12:27 pm
Magpie16,

I feel the usage of 'which', in the question stated above, can be justified.
Remember the question 'Emily Dickinson's letters to Susan Huntington Dickinson, which were written.....'
Here the usage of which is correct because when which is followed by a plural verb ('were' in the case), then which would modify the nearest plural subject available and that is 'Letters'.

Now applying the same concept to your question, 'which' is followed by 'are'. Hence it refers to the noun phrase 'books of Chetan Bhagat' rather than 'Chetan Bhagat'.

Hope it helps.


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by magpie16 » Thu May 30, 2013 5:32 pm
Hi Vivek,
"Which" is used here correctly and I have never said that "which" is used incorrectly. Also I am aware of Emily Dickinson's letter where "which" was a distant modifier. I am not sure what are you are trying convey because there is no ambiguity in correct use of "which" here. Instead, use of restrictive "that" is incorrect in option C.
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by vivekchandrams » Thu May 30, 2013 6:56 pm
Sorry mate,

I read the post form the user 'srcc25anu' and this reply was intended to him/her. Sorry for the inconvenience
magpie16 wrote:Hi Vivek,

"Which" is used here correctly and I have never said that "which" is used incorrectly. Also I am aware of Emily Dickinson's letter where "which" was a distant modifier. I am not sure what are you are trying convey because there is no ambiguity in correct use of "which" here. Instead, use of restrictive "that" is incorrect in option C.
srcc25anu wrote:
IMO B

A. which wrongly modifies Chetan Bhagat, not the books
C. Again THAT modifies Chetan Bhagat, If the construction was something like "the books that Chetan Bhagat authored" It would have been more convincing.
D.This is a run on sentence - CB's books .... <<are>> more popular than ...
E."More popular than any other writer" - what comes after this should be the author himself - in this case Chetan Bhagat.

That leaves us with B by POE
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by magpie16 » Thu May 30, 2013 9:14 pm
vivekchandrams wrote:Sorry mate,

I read the post form the user 'srcc25anu' and this reply was intended to him/her. Sorry for the inconvenience
Vivek, not a problem. You are right in anyway to say that "which" is used correctly. Below is the link to an excellent article on modifiers from e-GMAT:
https://gmatclub.com/forum/noun-modifier ... 35868.html
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by bubbliiiiiiii » Thu May 30, 2013 10:33 pm
magpie16 wrote: B)
- "Both X as well as Y" is not idiomatic; correct idiomatic form is "both X and Y".
- Singular "that" has the plural antecedent "books"; here "those" is needed in place of "that".
- As Chetan Bhagat is a Indian Writer, here the sentence means that the books of Chetan Bhagat are more popular than the books of Chetan Bhagat itself! The sentence needs to have "other" before "Indian Writer".

C)
- First "that" in the sentence is a restrictive "that" which is used inappropriately; here the sentence needs non-restrictive "which" as all books of Chetan Bhagat are taken as a whole.
- As Chetan Bhagat is a Indian Writer, here the sentence means that the books of Chetan Bhagat are more popular than the books of Chetan Bhagat itself! The sentence needs to have "other" before "Indian Writer".
Agree with this "Both X as well as Y" is not idiomatic; correct idiomatic form is "both X and Y".

However, I suspect this one.
- As Chetan Bhagat is a Indian Writer, here the sentence means that the books of Chetan Bhagat are more popular than the books of Chetan Bhagat itself! The sentence needs to have "other" before "Indian Writer".

My 2cents:

Although it is best to mention other before Indian writer, I understand that its implicitly understood when we say any Indian writer. Here, I read it as books of Chetan Bhagat are compared to books of any other Indian writer. However, by mentioning other the list of 'any Indian writer' excludes Chetan Bhagat.

Now rewriting options B and C:

(B) Chetan Bhagat's books, which are available in both soft and hard cover, are more popular than that of any Indian Writer
(C) The books of Chetan Bhagat that are available in both soft and hard cover are more popular than those of any Indian Writer.

I would choose C.

Please correct if my understanding is improper.
Regards,

Pranay
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by magpie16 » Thu May 30, 2013 11:47 pm
bubbliiiiiiii wrote: However, I suspect this one.
- As Chetan Bhagat is a Indian Writer, here the sentence means that the books of Chetan Bhagat are more popular than the books of Chetan Bhagat itself! The sentence needs to have "other" before "Indian Writer".

My 2cents:

Although it is best to mention other before Indian writer, I understand that its implicitly understood when we say any Indian writer. Here, I read it as books of Chetan Bhagat are compared to books of any other Indian writer. However, by mentioning other the list of 'any Indian writer' excludes Chetan Bhagat.
Regarding omission of "other": For colloquial communication, we can accept this type of structures with our common sense and we set our mind to accept that meaning which the sentence is supposed to convey logically. However, in GMAT scenario, we need to follow formal writing and we have to accept that meaning which is conveyed by the sentence. If we accept one sentence as correct only based on implied meaning, we might go to wrong direction. To judge a sentence, we need to consider the explicit meaning.

Consider the sentence: "She have an awesome car."
We can understand what this sentence is conveying though this sentence is grammatically incorrect.

In our particular case, omission of "other" creates an irrational analogy and thus it is a big mistake. Here Chetan Bhagat's books are compared with books of all Indian writers including Chetan Bhagat -- this is the explicit meaning of the sentence.

FYI: There are official questions which test this type of structure. Example: OG13 Q#98 -- option E is considered wrong as "other" is not mentioned there.
Last edited by magpie16 on Fri May 31, 2013 12:00 am, edited 1 time in total.
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by bubbliiiiiiii » Thu May 30, 2013 11:58 pm
FYI: There are official questions which test this type of structure.
Thanks for bringing this to my notice.

Could you please share few examples so that I can practice this stuff?
Regards,

Pranay
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