Unlike water, which is complimentary - modifier

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Hi Everyone,

Need help in the following question:-

Unlike water, which is complimentary, all passengers will need to pay cash for beverages during the transoceanic flight.

(A) Unlike water, which is complimentary
(B) Besides water, which is offered free of charge
(C) Unless the drink is water, which is complimentary
(D) Not like water, which is offered free of charge
(E) With water being the only exception


Answer is C

My answer is "B", but "B" is wrong.

What is wrong with "B". It means "in addition to water, which is offered free of charge, all passengers will need to pay cash for beverages during the transoceanic flight".

However in the following link the explanation says, "all passengers are not comparable to water".

https://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2010/11/ ... gmat-score

Is there any idiom that says :- Besides X, Y. If not then why B is incorrect. I know there is an idiom UNLIKE X, Y and i know how to use it.

Regards
Sachin
Source: — Sentence Correction |

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by bblast » Sat Jan 08, 2011 12:29 pm
sachin_yadav wrote:Hi Everyone,

Need help in the following question:-

Unlike water, which is complimentary, all passengers will need to pay cash for beverages during the transoceanic flight.

(A) Unlike water, which is complimentary
(B) Besides water, which is offered free of charge
(C) Unless the drink is water, which is complimentary
(D) Not like water, which is offered free of charge
(E) With water being the only exception


Answer is C

My answer is "B", but "B" is wrong.

What is wrong with "B". It means "in addition to water, which is offered free of charge, all passengers will need to pay cash for beverages during the transoceanic flight".

However in the following link the explanation says, "all passengers are not comparable to water".

https://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2010/11/ ... gmat-score

Is there any idiom that says :- Besides X, Y. If not then why B is incorrect. I know there is an idiom UNLIKE X, Y and i know how to use it.

Regards
Sachin


(A) Unlike water, which is complimentary, all passengers will need to pay cash for beverages during the transoceanic flight.
(B) Besides water, which is offered free of charge, all passengers will need to pay cash for beverages during the transoceanic flight.


read A and B now, u will get ur answer,

unlike water/besides water - incorrectly are compared to passengers

which is offered free of charge/which is complimentary --are non restrictive clauses without which the sentence can stand and make sense


hope this helps...
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by Target2009 » Sat Jan 08, 2011 8:08 pm
Unlike water, which is complimentary, all passengers will need to pay cash for beverages during the transoceanic flight.

(A) Unlike water, which is complimentary -> Unlike water .. , all passenger = wrong comparison
(B) Besides water, which is offered free of charge -> Besides water .. , all passenger = wrong comparison
(C) Unless the drink is water, which is complimentary - > Correct, "Unless" is conjunction here and it Joins 2 independent clauses .
(D) Not like water, which is offered free of charge -> Not like water .. , all passenger = wrong comparison
(E) With water being the only exception -> being
IMO - C

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by sachin_yadav » Sun Jan 09, 2011 9:14 am
bblast wrote:
(A) Unlike water, which is complimentary, all passengers will need to pay cash for beverages during the transoceanic flight.
(B) Besides water, which is offered free of charge, all passengers will need to pay cash for beverages during the transoceanic flight.


read A and B now, u will get ur answer,

unlike water/besides water - incorrectly are compared to passengers

which is offered free of charge/which is complimentary --are non restrictive clauses without which the sentence can stand and make sense


hope this helps...
Thank you bblast for your reply, but to be honest i know "which" is a non-essential modifier and i miss on this one, my mistake.

One more thing, the second option change the meaning of the sentence too.

(B) Besides water, which is offered free of charge, all passengers will need to pay cash for beverages during the transoceanic flight.

(B). In addition to water, which is offered free of charge, all passengers will need to pay cash for beverages during the transoceanic flight.
Target2009 wrote:
(B) Besides water, which is offered free of charge -> Besides water .. , all passenger = wrong comparison
As said above:- Besides water .. , all passenger = wrong comparison

Is "Besides X, Y" an idiom or Is there any idiom that can be constructed with "BESIDES" or Is it a comparison signal ?

Anyone please reply.

Thanks,
Sachin

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by bblast » Sun Jan 09, 2011 11:46 am
sachin_yadav wrote:
bblast wrote:
(A) Unlike water, which is complimentary, all passengers will need to pay cash for beverages during the transoceanic flight.
(B) Besides water, which is offered free of charge, all passengers will need to pay cash for beverages during the transoceanic flight.


read A and B now, u will get ur answer,

unlike water/besides water - incorrectly are compared to passengers

which is offered free of charge/which is complimentary --are non restrictive clauses without which the sentence can stand and make sense

its not an idiom

its just a comparison indicator sachin

hope this helps...
Thank you bblast for your reply, but to be honest i know "which" is a non-essential modifier and i miss on this one, my mistake.

One more thing, the second option change the meaning of the sentence too.

(B) Besides water, which is offered free of charge, all passengers will need to pay cash for beverages during the transoceanic flight.

(B). In addition to water, which is offered free of charge, all passengers will need to pay cash for beverages during the transoceanic flight.
Target2009 wrote:
(B) Besides water, which is offered free of charge -> Besides water .. , all passenger = wrong comparison
As said above:- Besides water .. , all passenger = wrong comparison

Is "Besides X, Y" an idiom or Is there any idiom that can be constructed with "BESIDES" or Is it a comparison signal ?

Anyone please reply.

Thanks,
Sachin
Cheers !!

Quant 47-Striving for 50
Verbal 34-Striving for 40

My gmat journey :
https://www.beatthegmat.com/710-bblast-s ... 90735.html
My take on the GMAT RC :
https://www.beatthegmat.com/ways-to-bbla ... 90808.html
How to prepare before your MBA:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upz46D7 ... TWBZF14TKW_

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by David@VeritasPrep » Sun Jan 09, 2011 2:50 pm
This is a Veritas question from the Veritas Critical Reasoning 2 book. This one was written by my colleague, Brian Galvin, who discusses it in the article that bblast mentions.

A couple of points to make here...

1) I would not make too much of the fact that these are non-essential modifiers. You can apply the "use it or lose it" to essential modifiers as well. If this sentence said "unlike water that is complementary" (I know it sounds a little strange) this would still be a modifier that you can "skip" or "look past" once you know that the modifier is not misplaced. Perhaps a better example would be, "Unlike the man who lives down the street, my house is always tidy." So you can see that this modifier is essential, however, if it is logical that the man can "live down the street" and if the modifier is therefore not misplaced, then you can look past it. It is not the fact that the modifier is non-essential that allows you to read the sentence without it, rather it is the fact that the modifier is not misplaced!

2) One of the posts above comments that answer choice B can also be eliminated because it changes the meaning of the sentence. Please see the following link to a post that I made after extensively researching the area of "changing the meaning" in sentence correction.

https://www.beatthegmat.com/toughest-que ... 69388.html

Here is the relevant portion of the above link:

"This is a very important question that you ask so I have spent time to go through the entire OG 12 edition to find instances where answer choices are considered wrong for reasons of meaning. This took some time but was very enlightening.

What I found was this: You can eliminate an answer choice based on changing or distorting the "intended" meaning. Interestingly, answer choice A does not always convey the intended meaning and I found that A was eliminated as often or more often than any other choice, because of changing the intended meaning. So you CANNOT eliminate a choice because it changes from answer choice A. You can eliminate if it changes from the intended meaning but you have to determine that meaning, which may not be the one in the original sentence.

In the OG 12 edition, the following questions had answers eliminated for being illogical, but no mention of changing the meaning. Numbers 8, 14, 17, 36, 39, 47, 51, 53, 98

The following questions do mention a change in meaning, however, that is not a change in meaning from Choice A, but a change in meaning from the "intended meaning." By the way, each of these answer choices also feature other errors: questions 37, 46, 55, 57, 64, 91.

To emphasize that the original sentence is not the standard by which meaning is measured, the following answers all feature an original sentence that was illogical or did not correctly convey the intended meaning. Let me restate, it is possible for Choice A to not convey the intended meaning. (Answer Choice A was described as "not conveying the intended meaning" or "illogical" or "does not make sense.") questions 19, 23, 31, 41, 78, 89, 97, 120, 132, 135, 137

In your example above, "will" and "may" are both quite logical, so you can only eliminate if there is a way for you to determine the "intended" meaning. Not to worry, there is almost always another way to eliminate an answer choice so you should not face the choice that you have listed above.

I have listed the question numbers that I found had some relation to this subject so that each person could investigate if they choose...

Hope that helps!"
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by sachin_yadav » Mon Jan 10, 2011 5:17 am
Hi David,

Thank you for your reply. Your post is very useful. I will go through the questions one by one.

Regards,
Sachin

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