Official GMAT paper exam question-help please

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Please help...The answer is B. Why isn't it A and why is the "it" in B necessary? It seems redundant...


Archaeologists in Ireland believe that a recently discovered chalice, which dates from the eighth century, was probably buried to keep from being stolen by invaders.

(A) to keep from
(B) to keep it from
(C) to avoid
(D) in order that it would avoid
(E) in order to keep from
Source: — Sentence Correction |

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by just_do_it » Wed Aug 20, 2008 10:47 am
for the time being, ignore the 'which..' part of the sentence - which dates from the eighth century

The sentence will look like this:
Archaeologists in Ireland believe that a recently discovered chalice was probably buried to keep from being stolen by invaders.

without the pronoun (it) the sentence looks incomplete. We need to know what (a noun) is being buried. And hence we require IT.

Archaeologists in Ireland believe that a recently discovered chalice was probably buried to keep IT from being stolen by invaders. (it clearly has only one antecedent - chalice)

Hope the explanation helps.

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by dileepsinha » Wed Aug 20, 2008 7:34 pm
B is right because all the other choices indicate in some way or the other, that the chalice was buried, so that the chalice could stop itself from being stolen.

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