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George Washington

by akhpad » Sun May 23, 2010 7:04 am
Source: Kaplan

Unlike George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and other revolutionary heroes, the reputation of Thomas Paine suffered greatly, to the point where no church cemetery would accept Paine for burial when he died in 1809.

(A) Unlike George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and other revolutionary heroes, the reputation of Thomas Paine suffered
greatly, to the point where
(B) Unlike the reputations of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and other revolutionary heroes, Thomas Paine suffered greatly, to the point that, because of his reputation,
(C) In contrast to George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and other revolutionary heroes, the reputation of Thomas Paine suffered greatly, such that
(D) The reputation of Thomas Paine, unlike those of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and other revolutionary heroes, suffered so greatly that
(E) Thomas Paine's reputation suffered greatly, so much so that, unlike George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and other
revolutionary heroes,

OA: D

I have a Q about correct option.

in D: The reputation of Vs those of

"reputation' is singular. How can be those?
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Source: — Sentence Correction |
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by gmat_perfect » Sun May 23, 2010 7:18 am
Unlike George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and other revolutionary heroes, the reputation of Thomas Paine suffered greatly, to the point where no church cemetery would accept Paine for burial when he died in 1809.

(A) Unlike George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and other revolutionary heroes, the reputation of Thomas Paine suffered
greatly, to the point where
=> Unlike X, Y, where X and Y must be grammatically parallel.
Unlike Persons, reputation=> Does not match. OUT.

(B) Unlike the reputations of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and other revolutionary heroes, Thomas Paine suffered greatly, to the point that, because of his reputation,

=> Unlike reputation, Persons=> Does not match. OUT.

(C) In contrast to George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and other revolutionary heroes, the reputation of Thomas Paine suffered greatly, such that

In contrast to X, Y, where X and Y must be grammatically parallel.
=> In contrast to Persons, reputation=> Does not match. OUT.
(D) The reputation of Thomas Paine, unlike those of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and other revolutionary heroes, suffered so greatly that

(E) Thomas Paine's reputation suffered greatly, so much so that, unlike George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and other
revolutionary heroes,
=> Bad comparison and awkward construction. OUT.

Some thoughts:

1. The pattern of the sentence should me checked first:

"The reputation of A, unlike those (reputations) of X, Y, and Z, suffered..." is the pattern of this sentence.
=> Reputation can be plural.

Examples from google:

Go here for classic reputations.
Tips for protecting reputations.
They didn't care what people thought about their reputations.

Answer is D.
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by Jen@VeritasPrep » Sun May 23, 2010 9:37 am
akhp77 wrote:
OA: D

I have a Q about correct option.

in D: The reputation of Vs those of

"reputation' is singular. How can be those?
Good question! You seem to have identified the core issue of this sentence, which is the consistency of the comparison. We can compare reputation to reputation or person to person, but we can't correctly compare reputation to person. Answer choice D correctly compares the reputation of Thomas Paine to the reputations of other revolutionary heroes.

Let's look at the singular/plural issue a bit more closely. The GMAT often replaces an item being compared with the singular pronoun "that" or the plural pronoun "those." In this example, we have the singular reputation of Thomas Paine compared to the MULTIPLE reputations of SEVERAL PEOPLE (Washington, Jefferson, and other heroes), so we need either the plural noun "reputations" OR the plural pronoun "those." The pronoun "those" isn't referring back to the singular "reputation"; it's actually replacing the implied plural noun "reputations": The reputation of Thomas Paine, like those (reputations) of George Washington...

If we were comparing Paine's reputation to the reputation of only one other person, we would use the singular: The reputation of Thomas Paine, like THAT (reputation) of George Washington, suffered so greatly that....

Hope that helps!
Jen Rugani
GMAT Instructor, Veritas Prep
www.veritasprep.com
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by akhpad » Sun May 23, 2010 9:42 am
Thanks Jen Rugani
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by deepak_free » Sun May 23, 2010 10:20 am
Dear Akhil please post the answers under spoiler
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by Shalabh7 » Sat Aug 17, 2013 6:48 am
Is "so much so that", in option E, correct?
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by vietmoi999 » Sun Aug 18, 2013 6:22 am
Jen@VeritasPrep wrote:
akhp77 wrote:
OA: D

I have a Q about correct option.

in D: The reputation of Vs those of

"reputation' is singular. How can be those?
Good question! You seem to have identified the core issue of this sentence, which is the consistency of the comparison. We can compare reputation to reputation or person to person, but we can't correctly compare reputation to person. Answer choice D correctly compares the reputation of Thomas Paine to the reputations of other revolutionary heroes.

Let's look at the singular/plural issue a bit more closely. The GMAT often replaces an item being compared with the singular pronoun "that" or the plural pronoun "those." In this example, we have the singular reputation of Thomas Paine compared to the MULTIPLE reputations of SEVERAL PEOPLE (Washington, Jefferson, and other heroes), so we need either the plural noun "reputations" OR the plural pronoun "those." The pronoun "those" isn't referring back to the singular "reputation"; it's actually replacing the implied plural noun "reputations": The reputation of Thomas Paine, like those (reputations) of George Washington...

If we were comparing Paine's reputation to the reputation of only one other person, we would use the singular: The reputation of Thomas Paine, like THAT (reputation) of George Washington, suffered so greatly that....

Hope that helps!
great, thank you expert.
could you tell em the question in og/gmatprep, in which "those" can be used similarly. If there is no the questions, the use of "those" in this question from Kaplan is not certainly correct.
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by KapTeacherEli » Mon Aug 19, 2013 6:56 pm
Shalabh7 wrote:Is "so much so that", in option E, correct?
"So much so" is grammatically correct, but it's a very wordy construction. It's unlikely to be in a correct GMAT answer choice for that reason.
Eli Meyer
Kaplan GMAT Teacher
Cambridge, MA
www.kaptest.com/gmat

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