Based on records from ancient Athens, each year young Atheni

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Based on records from ancient Athens, each year young Athenian women collarborated to weave a new woolen robe that they used to dress a statue of the goddess Athena and that this robe depicted scenes of a battle between Zeus, Athena's father, and giants.

A. Based on records from ancient Athens, each year young Athenian women collarborated to weave a new woolen robe that they used to dress

B. Based on records from ancient Athens, young Athenian women had collaborated to weave a new woolen robe with which to dress

C. According to records from ancient Athens, each year young Athenian women collaborated to weave a new woolen robe that they used to dress

D. Records from ancient Athens indicate that each year young Athenian women collaborated to weave a new woolen robe with which they dressed

E. Records from ancient Athens indicate each year young Athenian women had collaborated to weave a new woolen robe for dressing

Please explain as to how I can approach to this question?
[spoiler]oa:d[/spoiler]
Source: — Sentence Correction |

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by Maciek » Fri Sep 03, 2010 12:48 pm
Hi!

'Which' is simply better here than 'that'. We use 'which' if we want to give more information about a noun just before the comma.
When the information provided by the clause is required to identify the person (or thing), then there are no commas with 'which'.
Source: https://www.grammar-monster.com/lessons/ ... or_not.htm

Thus we should eliminate answers A and C.
Answers B and E include past perfect tense and that changes the meaning of the original sentence.
The clauses in answer B are not parallel: "...had collaborated... to dress..."
Answer D is correct

Hope it helps!
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by BastiG » Fri Sep 03, 2010 6:53 pm
Maciek wrote:Hi!

'Which' is simply better here than 'that'. We use 'which' if we want to give more information about a noun just before the comma.
When the information provided by the clause is required to identify the person (or thing), then there are no commas with 'which'.
Source: https://www.grammar-monster.com/lessons/ ... or_not.htm

Thus we should eliminate answers A and C.
Answers B and E include past perfect tense and that changes the meaning of the original sentence.
The clauses in answer B are not parallel: "...had collaborated... to dress..."
Answer D is correct

Hope it helps!
Best,
Maciek
I am afraid that I have to disagree with you. "which" is in this case the object of the preposition "with". So in this example you don't restrict the sentence with "which".

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by ashish2104 » Fri Sep 03, 2010 8:52 pm
After reading posts from Maciek and BastiG, I am now confused I the OA is correct. I was caught between C and D and prefered C over D, because I was not certain of usage of 'which' in D.

Can someone shed more light on this?

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by Gurpinder » Fri Sep 03, 2010 9:27 pm
focusgmat wrote:Based on records from ancient Athens, each year young Athenian women collarborated to weave a new woolen robe that they used to dress a statue of the goddess Athena and that this robe depicted scenes of a battle between Zeus, Athena's father, and giants.


C. According to records from ancient Athens, each year young Athenian women collaborated to weave a new woolen robe that they used to dress

D. Records from ancient Athens indicate that each year young Athenian women collaborated to weave a new woolen robe with which they dressed
See the parallel between the question and choice D. They are clearly parallel to each other whereas (C) is missing that.

So (D).
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by BastiG » Fri Sep 03, 2010 9:48 pm
focusgmat wrote:Based on records from ancient Athens, each year young Athenian women collarborated to weave a new woolen robe that they used to dress a statue of the goddess Athena and that this robe depicted scenes of a battle between Zeus, Athena's father, and giants.

A. Based on records from ancient Athens, each year young Athenian women collarborated to weave a new woolen robe that they used to dress

B. Based on records from ancient Athens, young Athenian women had collaborated to weave a new woolen robe with which to dress

C. According to records from ancient Athens, each year young Athenian women collaborated to weave a new woolen robe that they used to dress

D. Records from ancient Athens indicate that each year young Athenian women collaborated to weave a new woolen robe with which they dressed

E. Records from ancient Athens indicate each year young Athenian women had collaborated to weave a new woolen robe for dressing

Please explain as to how I can approach to this question?
[spoiler]oa:d[/spoiler]
This is the way I attacked this question:

First I made a Split between Based on/According to

You can't use "based on" at this sentence because the young Athenian women didn't use the records to collaborate or use the records to weave a robe.

Example for based on:
(base something on) use (something specified) as the foundation or starting point for something:
The film is based on a novel by Pat Conroy.
Source: Oxford Dictionary
--> So you can rule out A/B

Second:
I ruled out C because you can't say:
"a new woolen robe that they used to dress"

This tells you that the Athenians use the robe to do s.th. But it is not really concise.

For Example:

Tom used to dress his son. vs Tom dresses his son.

Third:
I ruled out E because you need the "that" after indicate as Gurbinder pointed out in the previous post.

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