Question type: Actor needed in given sentence

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Some questions ask for the actor to be in the sentence.

reference Manhattan SC guide.

The patient's rare disease was treated using novel techniques developed at the medical school. (Incorrect)
The doctor treated the patient's rare disease by using novel techniques developed at the medical school (correct)

Modifier is dangling since the sentence contains no noun that is properly modified 'by using novel techniques'.

Question: There are some dangling modifiers ,especially at the begining, that can be identified very easily.But in the casse above, it is difficult to get it. WHAT is the best way to deal with such situation ?

An example question from OG 12 # 101 (Also it really falls in the category I have described ?)

Heavy commitment by an executive to a course of action, especially if it has worked well in the past, makes it likely to miss signs of incipient trouble or misinterpret them when they do appear.

(A) Heavy commitment by an executive to a course of action, especially if it has worked well in the past, makes it likely to miss signs of incipient trouble or misinterpret them when they do appear.
(B) An executive who is heavily committed to a course of action, especially one that worked well in the past, makes missing signs of incipient trouble or misinterpreting ones likely when they do appear.
(C) An executive who is heavily committed to a course of action is likely to miss or misinterpret signs of incipient trouble when they do appear, especially if it has worked well in the past.
(D) Executives' being heavily committed to a course of action, especially if it has worked well in the past, makes them likely to miss signs of incipient trouble or misinterpreting them when they do appear.
(E) Being heavily committed to a course of action, especially one that has worked well in the past, is likely to make an executive miss signs of incipient trouble or misinterpret them when they do appear.
Source: — Sentence Correction |

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by gmat_perfect » Wed Mar 23, 2011 5:34 am
GMATMadeEasy wrote:Some questions ask for the actor to be in the sentence.

reference Manhattan SC guide.

The patient's rare disease was treated using novel techniques developed at the medical school. (Incorrect)
The doctor treated the patient's rare disease by using novel techniques developed at the medical school (correct)

Modifier is dangling since the sentence contains no noun that is properly modified 'by using novel techniques'.

Question: There are some dangling modifiers ,especially at the begining, that can be identified very easily.But in the casse above, it is difficult to get it. WHAT is the best way to deal with such situation ?

An example question from OG 12 # 101 (Also it really falls in the category I have described ?)

Heavy commitment by an executive to a course of action, especially if it has worked well in the past, makes it likely to miss signs of incipient trouble or misinterpret them when they do appear.

(A) Heavy commitment by an executive to a course of action, especially if it has worked well in the past, makes it likely to miss signs of incipient trouble or misinterpret them when they do appear.
(B) An executive who is heavily committed to a course of action, especially one that worked well in the past, makes missing signs of incipient trouble or misinterpreting ones likely when they do appear.
(C) An executive who is heavily committed to a course of action is likely to miss or misinterpret signs of incipient trouble when they do appear, especially if it has worked well in the past.
(D) Executives' being heavily committed to a course of action, especially if it has worked well in the past, makes them likely to miss signs of incipient trouble or misinterpreting them when they do appear.
(E) Being heavily committed to a course of action, especially one that has worked well in the past, is likely to make an executive miss signs of incipient trouble or misinterpret them when they do appear.

Dangling Modifier:

A dangling modifier, a specific case of which is the dangling participle, is an error in sentence structure whereby a grammatical modifier is associated with a word other than the one intended, or with no particular word at all. For example, a writer may have meant to modify the subject, but word order makes the modifier seem to modify an object instead. Such ambiguities can lead to unintentional humor or difficulty in understanding a sentence.

Example:

Coming from school, football was played by me.

--> This means that football came from school.

Wrong: After drinking too much coffee, signs of fatigue may be exhibited by a student who is stressed out.
Corrected: After drinking too much coffee, a student who is stressed out may exhibit signs of fatigue.

Analyze some sentences from official guides, you can easily find some good examples.

Thanks.

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by GMATMadeEasy » Wed Mar 23, 2011 10:39 am
@ gmat_perfect : Thanks for your reply. You are making a difference to the community. I appreciate and learn from many of your answers.

For this one, the one i posted is of type a bit difficult. I did analyze the OG but didn't find examples a bit disguised. easy ones of dangling modifiers we all can make out but some hard ones..

u have some examples to cite ?

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