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Kaplan - El Salvador

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by jube » Thu Jul 15, 2010 7:52 am
That El Salvador is pervaded by violence and stark terror was reported by Joan Didion in a disturbing series of articles recorded her impressions of the two weeks she spent in that small, remote nation.

A) That El Salvador is pervaded by violence and stark terror was reported by Joan Didion in a disturbing series of articles recorded
B) That violence and stark terror pervade El Salvador was reported by Joan Didion in a disturbing series of articles recording
C) Violence and stark terror pervade El Salvador, and were reported by Joan Didion in a disturbing series of articles recorded
D) Violence and stark terror pervade El Salvador, which was reported by Joan Didion in a disturbing series of articles recording
E) El Salvador is pervaded by violence and stark terror, and it was reported by Joan Didion in a disturbing series of articles recording
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by paes » Thu Jul 15, 2010 7:57 am
IMO B.

recording is correct, recorded is wrong here.
So B, D E remians.

D : which is wrong
E : usage of it.
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by jube » Thu Jul 15, 2010 8:03 am
OA is B.

Agree with why D & E are wrong too - my confusion was over the construction of B. According to MGMAT this kind of construction is considered to be stylistically awkward by GMAT and shouldn't be used... so was confused. Any ideas?
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by uwhusky » Thu Jul 15, 2010 8:20 am
jube wrote:OA is B.

Agree with why D & E are wrong too - my confusion was over the construction of B. According to MGMAT this kind of construction is considered to be stylistically awkward by GMAT and shouldn't be used... so was confused. Any ideas?
What's the source of this question?

B) That violence and stark terror pervade El Salvador was reported by Joan Didion in a disturbing series of articles recording her impressions of the two weeks she spent in that small, remote nation.

B doesn't seem right because reported and recording appear to be redundant. I'll use the active voice method to rephrase the sentence, and it appears very awkward:

"Joan Didion in a disturbing series of articles reported that violence and stark terror pervade El Salvador" recording her impressions of the two weeks she spent in that small, remote nation.

I don't think B is grammatically correct.
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by jube » Thu Jul 15, 2010 8:26 am
Source is Kaplan. :-/

I wonder if one of the Kaplan teacher would be able to shed some light on this one.
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by uwhusky » Thu Jul 15, 2010 8:37 am
Ya, according to my understanding of structure. The sentence nuclei that is in passive can be made into active voice as well, and in this case, the active voice sounds awful.
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by KapTeacherEli » Thu Jul 15, 2010 11:30 am
jube wrote:OA is B.

Agree with why D & E are wrong too - my confusion was over the construction of B. According to MGMAT this kind of construction is considered to be stylistically awkward by GMAT and shouldn't be used... so was confused. Any ideas?
Hi Jube,

(B) is awkward, but that's okay.

Remember, Sentence Correction questions on the GMAT ask you for the best construction, not the perfect one. I can think of five or six problems straight out of the OG12 in which I would never actually type the correct answer.

The GMAT will never accept a grammatical error. In this case, 'Recorded' in (A) and (C), the misused "which" in (D), and the ambiguous "it" in (E) all eliminate their respective answer choices. Thus, the grammatically correct (B), no matter how awkward, must be the correct answer. Of course, hypothetically we might be able to rewrite (B) in a better form, and if that option were presented to us we would pick it. But questionable style will only eliminate an answer choice if a clearly better, grammatically correct answer choice exists.
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by pnk » Fri Jul 16, 2010 5:02 pm
jube wrote:That El Salvador is pervaded by violence and stark terror was reported by Joan Didion in a disturbing series of articles recorded her impressions of the two weeks she spent in that small, remote nation.

A) That El Salvador is pervaded by violence and stark terror was reported by Joan Didion in a disturbing series of articles recorded
B) That violence and stark terror pervade El Salvador was reported by Joan Didion in a disturbing series of articles recording
I still have doubt on B - is 'pervade' correct ??. It implies violence and stark terror usually pervade El ...when it should hv been 'pervaded'
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by uwhusky » Fri Jul 16, 2010 6:02 pm
I still can't break B down into a structure that is grammatical...
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by KapTeacherEli » Thu Jul 22, 2010 8:56 pm
still can't break B down into a structure that is grammatical...
The "better" way to write choice (B) would be: "In a series of article reporting the two weeks she spend in El Salvador, Joan Didion reported that violence and stark terror pervade that small remote nation."

(B) uses the same subject, modifiers, and descriptors--however, it rearranges the sentence by changing the active noun "reported" to the passive noun "was reported by". Thus, Didion, the actor in the sentence, becomes the object instead of the subject--and the subject becomes what she reported, the phrase "that violence...." taking the place of a noun.
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by Dauren » Sun Oct 19, 2014 9:06 am
Hi All,

Can anyone tell me why "it" is ambiguous in answer E?

the structure would be "El Salvador is pervaded" and "it was reported". In this case IT is subject itself and refers back to El Salvador. Or am I missing something?

Thanks!
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by [email protected] » Sun Oct 19, 2014 9:59 pm
Hi Dauren,

Unfortunately, in Answer E, the word "it" could refer to any of 3 things: El Salvador, violence or stark terror. From a strict grammar standpoint, the word "it" would probably be assumed to refer to "stark terror", since that is the "closest preceding singular noun" in the sentence. The "intent" of the sentence is that Joan Didion was reporting about ALL of these things going on in El Salvador, so the pronoun "it" is not correct in this context.

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