Sentence Correction

Stymieing the Armada's plans to meet up with the Duke of Parma's army off the coast of Flanders in the Spanish Netherlands, the reason for the defeat of the Spanish Armada was not only due to gale winds that favored the British but also the sacrificing of eight war ships as "fireships," vessels filled with pitch, brimstone, gunpowder, and tar and sent downwind toward the closely-anchored Spanish fleet.

A. Stymieing the Armada's plans to meet up with the Duke of Parma's army off the coast of Flanders in the Spanish Netherlands, the reason for the defeat of the Spanish Armada was not only due to gale winds that favored the British but also the sacrificing
B. The defeat of the Spanish Armada, which stymied the Armada's plans to meet up with the Duke of Parma's army off the coast of Flanders in the Spanish Netherlands, was not only due to gale winds that favored the British but also the sacrificing
C. The defeat of the Spanish Armada, which stymied the Armada's plans to meet up with the Duke of Parma's army off the coast of Flanders in the Spanish Netherlands, was not only due to gale winds that favored the British but also due to the sacrificing
D. Stymieing the Armada's plans to meet up with the Duke of Parma's army off the coast of Flanders in the Spanish Netherlands, the reason for the defeat of the Spanish Armada was not only gale winds that favored the British but also the sacrifice
E. Stymieing the Armada's plans to meet up with the Duke of Parma's army off the coast of Flanders in the Spanish Netherlands, the defeat of the Spanish Armada was due not only to gale winds that favored the British but also to the sacrifice

This was a good one from Mgmat..So thought of posting...
Range : 700-800

OA is E

||sm and modifiers tested....was not able to get right in the exam...

I selected C.

meaning itself is very clumsy, difficult so solve in 1-2 min.

yeah..was able to select correct answer later wen i gotto know d meaning of Stymieing ...

why is D wrong ?

wonderguy wrote:why is D wrong ?

Its the " defeat of spanish armada " who stymid the plans.

In " D" The reason of defeat of spanish armada who stymid the plan. Modifiers mistake.

At first glance I too made a mistake. In option E I am still confused Can we use "Due phrase 1 to phrase 2".

Is it Idiomatic ?

Please Explain. Thanks

adi_800 wrote:Stymieing the Armada's plans to meet up with the Duke of Parma's army off the coast of Flanders in the Spanish Netherlands, the reason for the defeat of the Spanish Armada was not only due to gale winds that favored the British but also the sacrificing of eight war ships as "fireships," vessels filled with pitch, brimstone, gunpowder, and tar and sent downwind toward the closely-anchored Spanish fleet.

A. Stymieing the Armada's plans to meet up with the Duke of Parma's army off the coast of Flanders in the Spanish Netherlands, the reason for the defeat of the Spanish Armada was not only due to gale winds that favored the British but also the sacrificing
B. The defeat of the Spanish Armada, which stymied the Armada's plans to meet up with the Duke of Parma's army off the coast of Flanders in the Spanish Netherlands, was not only due to gale winds that favored the British but also the sacrificing
C. The defeat of the Spanish Armada, which stymied the Armada's plans to meet up with the Duke of Parma's army off the coast of Flanders in the Spanish Netherlands, was not only due to gale winds that favored the British but also due to the sacrificing
D. Stymieing the Armada's plans to meet up with the Duke of Parma's army off the coast of Flanders in the Spanish Netherlands, the reason for the defeat of the Spanish Armada was not only gale winds that favored the British but also the sacrifice
E. Stymieing the Armada's plans to meet up with the Duke of Parma's army off the coast of Flanders in the Spanish Netherlands, the defeat of the Spanish Armada was due not only to gale winds that favored the British but also to the sacrifice

This was a good one from Mgmat..So thought of posting...
Range : 700-800

I got this correct though I took approx 3 min.
A and B can be eliminated easily.
"Which" in C is ambiguous in pointing.

I read D and E 2 times each, and then it clicked that reason can not block anything.

tough one!!

E is correct.

Explanations:
A - Stymieing the Armada's plans to meet up with the Duke of Parma's army off the coast of Flanders in the Spanish Netherlands is incorrectly modifying the reason for the defeat when it should modify defeat. Moreover, sacrificing is incorrect. We need a noun here. sacrifice is appropriate.

B - Modifier error in A corrected, but sacrificing still remains. Also, due to is missing after but also resulting in parallelism error.

C - sacrificing - Same error as in A.

D - Same modifier error as in A

E - Corrects all three errors seen earlier (Modifier error, incorrect verb usage and parallelism error)

To understand why sacrificing of is incorrect, Look at the following examples -

1) In yesterday's US Open final, the destroying of Nadal was fascinating to watch.
2) In yesterday's US Open final, the destruction of Nadal was fascinating to watch.

X of Nadal has to be a noun as it is acting as the subject of the sentence. Use of verb destroying is incorrect. Thus statement 2 is grammatically correct while 1 is not.

(Note that destroying as a gerund cannot be used as a noun destruction already exists)

OE for d problem from Mgmat..


The original has two major problems. "Stymieing the Armada's plans to meet up with the Duke of Parma's army off the coast of Flanders in the Spanish Netherlands" is incorrectly modifying "the reason" rather than "the defeat." Also, the elements in the idiom "not only X but also Y" must be parallel. The elements in "not only due to gale winds ... but also the sacrificing" are not parallel.

(A)
The introductory modifier incorrectly modifies "the reason." The elements in "not only due to gale winds ... but also the sacrificing" are not parallel. Finally, it is redundant to write "the reason for result X... was... due to Y." You can write "the reason for result X was Y," or you can write "result X was due to Y," but not both.

(B)
The use of a "which" modifier (which must touch the thing that it modifies) implies that the Spanish Armada, not its defeat, stymied plans. The elements in "not only due to gale winds ... but also the sacrificing" are not parallel.

(C)
The use of a "which" modifier (which must touch the thing that it modifies) implies that the Spanish Armada, not its defeat, stymied plans. The parallelism of "not only due to gale winds ... but also due to the sacrificing" is improved here, but still wordy due to unnecessary repetition of "due to."

(D)
The introductory modifier incorrectly modifies "the reason."

(E) Correct.
The introductory modifier correctly modifies "the defeat." The elements in "due not only to gale winds that favored the British but also to the sacrifice" are parallel. Additionally, "sacrifice" is preferable to "sacrificing," and the placement of "due" BEFORE the not only ... but also construct prevents the unnecessary repetition of the word.

The correct answer is (E).

In E:
Is it good to split "due to"? Same thing was done in E.

Is there not any grammar restricting on splitting "due to"?

I got D. But then, that was when I did not look up the exact meaning of stymieing.

I guess, that word is the 'catch' in this question.

adi_800 wrote:\


The original has two major problems. "Stymieing the Armada's plans to meet up with the Duke of Parma's army off the coast of Flanders in the Spanish Netherlands" is incorrectly modifying "the reason" rather than "the defeat." Also, the elements in the idiom "not only X but also Y" must be parallel. The elements in "not only due to gale winds ... but also the sacrificing" are not parallel.

(A)
The introductory modifier incorrectly modifies "the reason." The elements in "not only due to gale winds ... but also the sacrificing" are not parallel. Finally, it is redundant to write "the reason for result X... was... due to Y." You can write "the reason for result X was Y," or you can write "result X was due to Y," but not both.

(B)
The use of a "which" modifier (which must touch the thing that it modifies) implies that the Spanish Armada, not its defeat, stymied plans. The elements in "not only due to gale winds ... but also the sacrificing" are not parallel.

(C)
The use of a "which" modifier (which must touch the thing that it modifies) implies that the Spanish Armada, not its defeat, stymied plans. The parallelism of "not only due to gale winds ... but also due to the sacrificing" is improved here, but still wordy due to unnecessary repetition of "due to."

(D)
The introductory modifier incorrectly modifies "the reason."

(E) Correct.
The introductory modifier correctly modifies "the defeat." The elements in "due not only to gale winds that favored the British but also to the sacrifice" are parallel. Additionally, "sacrifice" is preferable to "sacrificing," and the placement of "due" BEFORE the not only ... but also construct prevents the unnecessary repetition of the word.

The correct answer is (E).

I'm still a little confused on the //ism part of the sentences.

q1) You mention in choice E that having "due" BEFORE the "not only" prevents the repetition. Is there a general rule here that I can follow? It seems to me that the issue is always what words/phrase I consider to be parallel.

q2) If I took out "to" from "to the sacrifice" in option E - would that ruin the parallelism. Like I said - just trying to get to the bottom of the //ism issue.

I did the split with "sacrifice" and "sacrificing" which obviously seems like the incorrect choice after reading all the explanations - is that correct?

Thanks!