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Kaplan CAT SC mystery (to me at least)

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by XIII » Wed Mar 12, 2008 3:16 pm
Uninformed about students ’ experience in urban classrooms, critics often condemn schools ’ performance as gauged by an index, such as standardized test scores, that are called objective and can be quantified and overlook less measurable progress, such as that in higher-level reasoning.

A. an index, such as standardized test scores, that are called objective and can be quantified and overlook less measurable progress, such as that

B. an index, such as standardized test scores, that are called objective and can be quantified and overlook less measurable progress, such as what is made

C. an index, such as standardized test scores, that is called objective and can be quantified and overlook less measurable progress, such as what is made

D. a so-called objective index, such as standardized test scores, that can be quantified and overlook less measurable progress, such as what is made

E. a so-called objective index, such as standardized test scores, that is quantified and overlook less measurable progress, such as that



I had chosen D but the correct answer is E based on the fact that "such as that" is less awkward than "such as what is made in".

What bothers me though is that E looked wrong at first glance because of the fact that the verb "to overlook" is not matched with the singular subject "so-called objective index" whereas "to be" (that IS quantified) is.
Could Kaplan have made a mistake in solely focusing on the concluding phrase as the determining factor between C, D and E ?
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Source: — Sentence Correction |

XIII wrote:Uninformed about students ’ experience in urban classrooms, critics often condemn schools ’ performance as gauged by an index, such as standardized test scores, that are called objective and can be quantified and overlook less measurable progress, such as that in higher-level reasoning.

A. an index, such as standardized test scores, that are called objective and can be quantified and overlook less measurable progress, such as that

B. an index, such as standardized test scores, that are called objective and can be quantified and overlook less measurable progress, such as what is made

C. an index, such as standardized test scores, that is called objective and can be quantified and overlook less measurable progress, such as what is made

D. a so-called objective index, such as standardized test scores, that can be quantified and overlook less measurable progress, such as what is made

E. a so-called objective index, such as standardized test scores, that is quantified and overlook less measurable progress, such as that



I had chosen D but the correct answer is E based on the fact that "such as that" is less awkward than "such as what is made in".

What bothers me though is that E looked wrong at first glance because of the fact that the verb "to overlook" is not matched with the singular subject "so-called objective index" whereas "to be" (that IS quantified) is.
Could Kaplan have made a mistake in solely focusing on the concluding phrase as the determining factor between C, D and E ?
"overlook" properly agrees with "critics".

The essence of the sentence is:

"... critics often condemn [x] and overlook [y]..."
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by camitava » Wed Mar 12, 2008 9:47 pm
Stuart,
I have a concern here! I also took option-D to pick. But why not D? Why is it E? Can you please elaborate your explanation, pls?
Correct me If I am wrong


Regards,

Amitava
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by XIII » Wed Mar 12, 2008 10:05 pm
Thanks Stuart. I guess 'overlook' was so far from 'critics' in the sentence that I had forgotten it could be a possibility.

Now hypothetically speaking, had there been another answer choice where we had "overlooks" to agree with the singular index rather than the critics in answer E. Would it have been wrong due to the fact that the action of "overlooking" cannot be attributed to an index but only to a human party such as the critics ?

It's a bit of a stretch but I'm just to trying to look for cues to make sure I don't repeat this type of mistake.
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by Stuart@KaplanGMAT » Thu Mar 13, 2008 11:37 am
There are two differencees between (d) and (e):

First, "that can be quantified" vs "that is quantified".

Numerical test scores are already numbers - therefore, they already ARE quantified. So, it's proper to say "is quantified" vs "can be quantified". There's one reason to choose (e).

Second, "such as what is made" vs "such as that".

In general, when we're referring back to a noun or noun phrase (e.g. "measurable progress"), we use the pronoun "that" instead of "what". "That" is less wordy (since it doesn't require extra language such as "is made") and more to the point. While "what is made" isn't gramatically incorrect, it's stylistically inferior.

As a general rule on the GMAT, if you have a choice between two gramatically correct phrases and one uses fewer words (without losing meaning), pick that choice.
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by AleksandrM » Fri Mar 14, 2008 9:55 am
Uninformed about students ’ experience in urban classrooms, critics often condemn schools ’ performance as gauged by an index, such as standardized test scores, that are called objective and can be quantified and overlook less measurable progress, such as that in higher-level reasoning.

A is wrong for sure. B through D all include the "such as what is made" which is wrong again.

E, however, states that the critics ignore the progress "such as that" in other words, such as progress in higher-level reasoning.
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by sahilchaudhary » Mon Nov 25, 2013 11:56 pm
Thanks Stuart for the excellent explanation.
Sahil Chaudhary
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