A staunch critic of the Umpire Decision

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aspirant2011: Legendary Member; Posts: 1574; Joined: Fri Jan 28, 2011 2:52 amFollowed by: 13 members; Thanked: 88 times

by aspirant2011 » Thu May 19, 2011 10:10 am

A staunch critic of the Umpire Decision Review System (UDRS), the football team captain did a volte face on Thursday by backing the controversial innovation and saying it would have to be used if the standard of umpiring keeps going down

A. A staunch critic of the Umpire Decision Review System (UDRS), the football team captain did a volte-face on Thursday by backing the controversial innovation and saying
B. A staunch critic of the Umpire Decision Review System (UDRS), the controversial innovation was backed by the football team captain when he did a volte-face on Thursday saying that
C. A staunch critic of the Umpire Decision Review System (UDRS), the football team captain did a volte-face on Thursday and backed the controversial innovation saying that
D. A staunch critic of the Umpire Decision Review System (UDRS), the football team captain had a volte-face on Thursday and is backing the controversial innovation by saying that
E. A staunch critic of the Umpire Decision Review System (UDRS), the football team captain did a volte-face on Thursday and has now decided to back the controversial innovation when he said that

[spoiler]OA: Don't you guys think that "captain did something by something" is the correct usage. Please discuss each answer choice in detail[/spoiler]

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Source: Beat The GMAT — Sentence Correction | Thu May 19, 2011 10:10 am

Target2009: Legendary Member; Posts: 574; Joined: Sat Oct 31, 2009 1:47 pmFollowed by: 5 members; Location: USA; Thanked: 29 times

by Target2009 » Thu May 19, 2011 11:34 am

Original Sentence looks okay to me.

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Abhishek
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amar66: Senior | Next Rank: 100 Posts; Posts: 94; Joined: Fri Jan 14, 2011 7:44 pmFollowed by: 5 members; Location: Bangalore, India; Thanked: 2 times

by amar66 » Thu May 19, 2011 12:10 pm

IMO C

A)Avoid -ing as much as possible. Moreover, "backing" & "saying" are not two separate tasks done by the captain. He is doing single task that is volte-face & that too by saying something. He proved his "backing" by "saying" in favor of UDRS. So don't need to break backing & saying into two separate clauses.
b)misplaced modifier
d)"had": wrong use of possessive
e)awkward, bad construction

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abhi0697: Senior | Next Rank: 100 Posts; Posts: 57; Joined: Tue Apr 19, 2011 7:39 pmFollowed by: 2 members; Location: Singapore; Thanked: 6 times

by abhi0697 » Fri May 20, 2011 7:05 am

I will go with C

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atulmangal: Legendary Member; Posts: 1112; Joined: Sat Feb 26, 2011 11:16 amFollowed by: 49 members; Thanked: 77 times

by atulmangal » Fri May 20, 2011 12:06 pm

IMO A

Volte-face is a total change of position, as in policy or opinion.

Op A

the football team captain did a volte face on Thursday

by backing the controversial innovation and

by saying bla bla bla

Op C

the football team captain did a volte-face on Thursday and
the football team captain backed the controversial innovation saying

Logically Op A seems good to me....IMO A

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cyrwr1: Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts; Posts: 218; Joined: Sat Jul 24, 2010 2:43 pm; Thanked: 5 times

by cyrwr1 » Fri May 20, 2011 1:11 pm

IMO C

Rephrase it as:

A critic of this rule, he changed his position on Thursday and supported the rule, saying that....

changed his position and supported are parallel---->> did and backed parallel (proved it by "saying that")

This is much better than " the player changed his position by supporting.... and saying...."

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clock60: Legendary Member; Posts: 759; Joined: Mon Apr 26, 2010 10:15 amFollowed by: 3 members; Thanked: 85 times

by clock60 » Fri May 20, 2011 10:38 pm

hi guys
i also torn between A and C
but finally picked C
in A , i think, we need second preposition before saying
to be || it must be,
a ..critic did a volte-face....by backing.... and by saying. Gmat very rare omits prepositions
in case of grammer C looks for me better, but logically A is closer to me in meaning

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Frankenstein: Legendary Member; Posts: 1448; Joined: Tue May 17, 2011 9:55 amFollowed by: 53 members; Location: India; Thanked: 375 times

by Frankenstein » Sat May 21, 2011 1:53 am

Hi,
IMO C
cywr1 has already pointed it out rightly

Cheers!

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mundasingh123: Legendary Member; Posts: 2330; Joined: Fri Jan 15, 2010 5:14 amFollowed by: 26 members; Thanked: 56 times

by mundasingh123 » Sat May 21, 2011 3:35 am

C. A staunch critic of the Umpire Decision Review System (UDRS), the football team captain did a volte-face on Thursday and backed the controversial innovation saying that

It seems as if the innovation were saying something
why is A wrong ? I choose A . I choose to side with the weak

I Seek Explanations Not Answers

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mundasingh123: Legendary Member; Posts: 2330; Joined: Fri Jan 15, 2010 5:14 amFollowed by: 26 members; Thanked: 56 times

by mundasingh123 » Sat May 21, 2011 3:38 am

amar66 wrote:IMO C

A)Avoid -ing as much as possible. Moreover, "backing" & "saying" are not two separate tasks done by the captain. He is doing single task that is volte-face & that too by saying something. He proved his "backing" by "saying" in favor of UDRS. So don't need to break backing & saying into two separate clauses.
b)misplaced modifier
d)"had": wrong use of possessive
e)awkward, bad construction

Hi amar how do u know whether the captiain did not do anything else to back the innovation

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Frankenstein: Legendary Member; Posts: 1448; Joined: Tue May 17, 2011 9:55 amFollowed by: 53 members; Location: India; Thanked: 375 times

by Frankenstein » Sat May 21, 2011 6:00 am

The use of 'and' in A, incorrectly signifies that both 'backing' and 'saying' are equally important and more importantly, that they could be mutually exclusive whereas the two are actually related in the sense that one is causing the other.
Because, the statement is in reported speech, I thought usage of 'that' after 'saying' in C makes it even better.
So, I chose 'C'
Probably, usage of 'by' before 'saying' in C would have made this absolutely clear.
Expert comments on this plz.

Cheers!

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VivianKerr: GMAT Instructor; Posts: 1035; Joined: Fri Dec 17, 2010 11:13 amFollowed by: 365 members; Location: Los Angeles, CA; Thanked: 474 times

by VivianKerr » Sat May 21, 2011 10:46 am

I also would choose C, for reasoning similar to Frankenstein. The implication is that he backed the innovation BY saying it would have to be used. Though parallel, "by backing...and saying..." implies they are 2 different things, which in context they are not.

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gmatdriller: Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts; Posts: 418; Joined: Sun Jul 04, 2010 12:48 pmFollowed by: 3 members; Thanked: 6 times

by gmatdriller » Sat May 21, 2011 12:31 pm

All the options but B used the right introductory modifier-
"the captain of the team."
A: "backing" and "saying" suggests different independent actions
C: David did a volte-face and backed ... saying that
D: had: David neither posses a "volte-face" nor "did" a volte-face before
some other event in the past.
E: says "David did a volte-face and has now decided to back..." wordy and redundant

Option C seems better than A.

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lunarpower: GMAT Instructor; Posts: 3380; Joined: Mon Mar 03, 2008 1:20 amFollowed by: 1535 members; Thanked: 2256 times; GMAT Score:800

by lunarpower » Sat May 21, 2011 1:58 pm

first, i wouldn't worry much about this question -- it's from an author who is apparently so unfamiliar with the test that he/she doesn't even know the most basic facts about how these questions are formatted. (specifically, the underlines all start with the same words; this NEVER happens on official problems, on which the underline ALWAYS starts at the first difference and ends at the last difference).

(a) is fine.
(c) would be fine if a comma were added before the -ING modifier. we need the -ING modifier to modify the previous clause, a type of modification that calls for a comma.

VivianKerr wrote:I also would choose C, for reasoning similar to Frankenstein. The implication is that he backed the innovation BY saying it would have to be used. Though parallel, "by backing...and saying..." implies they are 2 different things, which in context they are not.

i hear you here, but this isn't necessarily true; the context is not specific enough to allow us to make this determination for sure.
i.e., BOTH contexts are possible:
(a) the person backed the innovation in some other way (i.e., by justifying it in terms of rules/logic), AND THEN said that it would have to be used.
(c) the person backed the innovation by actually saying that it would have to be used.

both meanings are fine.
on balance, then, the original (a) is the best choice -- although the gmat is not going to have an answer choice like (c). i.e., the gmat is not going to contain answer choices that are only wrong in terms of punctuation.

Last edited by lunarpower on Tue May 24, 2011 5:11 am, edited 1 time in total.

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amar66: Senior | Next Rank: 100 Posts; Posts: 94; Joined: Fri Jan 14, 2011 7:44 pmFollowed by: 5 members; Location: Bangalore, India; Thanked: 2 times

by amar66 » Sat May 21, 2011 5:28 pm

Thank you Ron...!!!

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