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A group of FBI investigators, in connection with the 1975 di

by souvik101990 » Sat Oct 20, 2012 9:43 am
A group of FBI investigators, in connection with the 1975 disappearance of Teamsters leader Jimmy Hoffa, are searching a small area of a rural Milford Township horse farm.

A. A group of FBI investigators, in connection with the 1975 disappearance of Teamsters leader Jimmy Hoffa, are searching a small area of a rural Milford Township horse farm.

B. A group of FBI investigators, in connection with the 1975 disappearance of Teamsters leader Jimmy Hoffa, is searching a rural Milford Township horse farm, a small area within.

C. A group of FBI investigators, searching a small area of a rural Milford Township horse farm, is connected with the 1975 disappearance of Teamsters leader Jimmy Hoffa.

D. A group of FBI investigators, in connection with the 1975 disappearance of Teamsters leader Jimmy Hoffa, is searching a small area of a rural Milford Township horse farm.

E. A small area of a rural Milford Township horse farm is being searched by a group of FBI investigators in connection with the 1975 disappearance of Teamsters leader Jimmy Hoffa

[spoiler]OA D
I chose E because I thought "in connection with...." should modify "searched" and not the "group of investigators". Any other way to eliminate E except that it uses a passive construction?[/spoiler]

Source: MGMAT 750 slam Homework.
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by sanrisenew » Sat Oct 20, 2012 8:14 pm
It's between B & D.
In D we know exactly where search is being conducted.
In C modifier " a small area within" modifies whom is not clear
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by patanjali.purpose » Sun Oct 21, 2012 2:27 am
souvik101990 wrote:A group of FBI investigators, in connection with the 1975 disappearance of Teamsters leader Jimmy Hoffa, are searching a small area of a rural Milford Township horse farm.

A. A group of FBI investigators, in connection with the 1975 disappearance of Teamsters leader Jimmy Hoffa, are searching a small area of a rural Milford Township horse farm.

B. A group of FBI investigators, in connection with the 1975 disappearance of Teamsters leader Jimmy Hoffa, is searching a rural Milford Township horse farm, a small area within.

C. A group of FBI investigators, searching a small area of a rural Milford Township horse farm, is connected with the 1975 disappearance of Teamsters leader Jimmy Hoffa.

D. A group of FBI investigators, in connection with the 1975 disappearance of Teamsters leader Jimmy Hoffa, is searching a small area of a rural Milford Township horse farm.

E. A small area of a rural Milford Township horse farm is being searched by a group of FBI investigators in connection with the 1975 disappearance of Teamsters leader Jimmy Hoffa

[spoiler]OA D
I chose E because I thought "in connection with...." should modify "searched" and not the "group of investigators". Any other way to eliminate E except that it uses a passive construction?[/spoiler]

Source: MGMAT 750 slam Homework.
IN CONNECTION...HOFFA is a prep modifier (prep ph + comma) - ideally modify an action. In D it modifies action IS SEARCHING (why A group of FBI is searching? They are searching in connection with disappearance of Hoffa).

In E this prep modifier comes after a noun (or noun phrase without a comma). It appears A GROUP OF FBI INVESTIGATORS are CONNECTED WITH DISAPPEARANCE.
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by Benni » Sun Oct 21, 2012 11:59 am
And what is gramatically wrong with C?

I see that it says, that the FBI guys are in connection with the disapperance, but who says that this is not what they actually meant.

Secondly, why cant the group of FBI investors not be modified by "in connection.." in D. Because there is a comma? Thanks.
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by lunarpower » Wed Oct 24, 2012 2:59 am
i received a private message regarding this thread.

thanks for pointing out this problem. in fact, (e) is the best of these answer choices.

the modifier placement is better in choice (e) than in the other choices.
the modifier "in connection..." describes the searching of the farm, not the group of investigators, and so should be attached to the words describing the act of searching. choice E is the only choice in which this modifier is placed in a sensible location.

there's no problem with "is being searched...".
the sentence could also be written in the active voice -- "a group of investigators is searching xxxxxx in connection with yyyyy..." -- but that doesn't mean anything is actually wrong with the passive construction.

i will inquire into fixing this issue.
Ron has been teaching various standardized tests for 20 years.

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by souvik101990 » Wed Oct 24, 2012 4:13 am
Thanks a lot Ron for clarifying.
*Feels ready for the GMAT* :D
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by patanjali.purpose » Sun Oct 28, 2012 4:43 am
lunarpower wrote:i received a private message regarding this thread.

thanks for pointing out this problem. in fact, (e) is the best of these answer choices.

the modifier placement is better in choice (e) than in the other choices.
the modifier "in connection..." describes the searching of the farm, not the group of investigators, and so should be attached to the words describing the act of searching. choice E is the only choice in which this modifier is placed in a sensible location.

there's no problem with "is being searched...".
the sentence could also be written in the active voice -- "a group of investigators is searching xxxxxx in connection with yyyyy..." -- but that doesn't mean anything is actually wrong with the passive construction.

i will inquire into fixing this issue.
Ron,

I have many correct sentences as E (in connection with modifying verb, not the immediately preceding noun), eg

The Rosen Law Firm is investigating the Board of Directors of Ancestry.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: ACOM) for possible breaches of fiduciary duty and other violations of state law in connection with its going private transaction involving its CEO, CFO, Spectrum Equity and Permira, a European private equity firm (source: NYTIMES).

But, I get confused when I think of choice A the following OG problem:

(A) The nephew of Pliny the Elder wrote the only eyewitness account of the great eruption of Vesuvius in two letters to the historian Tacitus"

Here "A" is wrong because IN TWO LETTER TO THE HISTORIAN TACITUS can modify many preceding nouns (eg VESUVIUS). In that sense its ambiguous whether this prepositional phrase is an adjective modifier or an adverb modifier (modifying verb WROTE). Because of this ambiguity, A is wrong, even though we know logically that ERUPTION cannot happen in two letters or VESUVIUS cannot happen in two letters.

Similar situation could happen in choice E of original question (investigators ARE in connection - connected - with disappearance). I do not find such an ambiguity in D as IN CONNECTION comes before a comma and we know that prepositional phrases before a comma are generally an adverbial modifier. But even then you think E is better than D. What is wrong with my reasoning? Could you help me identify.
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by lunarpower » Mon Oct 29, 2012 1:26 am
I do not find such an ambiguity in D as IN CONNECTION comes before a comma and we know that prepositional phrases before a comma are generally an adverbial modifier.
well, the phenomenon you're describing here is something that applies primarily to modifiers at the start of sentences.

for instance, this principle applies to the following:
In 1993, I graduated from Manual High School.
--> here, the modifier applies to the stuff that comes after it -- because nothing comes before it.

this is not a principle that applies to modifiers sandwiched between two commas. in most of those cases, the modifier will describe the stuff that comes before it (as do most english modifiers).
e.g.
Manual High School, in central Louisville, is a "magnet school" that enrolls students from all areas of the city.
--> this is a perfectly respectable sentence, in which "in central Louisville" describes the school.

in fact, if you see a prepositional phrase that's right after a noun (like that one), then its purpose is almost always to describe the noun and NOT the following stuff. if you wanted the phrase to be adverbial, you'd throw it at the start of the sentence instead.
i.e.
if you have NOUN, in connection with xxxxxx, VERB..., then "in connection with xxxxx" should, ideally, describe the NOUN.
if you wanted this modifier to describe the action, that would be better written as In connection with xxxxxx, NOUN VERB ... -- a construction in which the adverbial nature of the modifier is not debatable.
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by lunarpower » Mon Oct 29, 2012 1:58 am
by the way -- (this is probably more info than you will really need here, but i'm shooting for a reasonable amount of completeness here)

there's one way in which you can reliably get a modifier between two commas to describe the following stuff. that way is to end the preceding stuff with a connector word, like that, when, although, and, etc., that would preclude the modifier from talking about the previous stuff.

e.g.
I was walking down the street when, near the football field, lightning struck a building and set it on fire.
--> here, the connector "when" implies that we've finished the first thought. so, "near the football field" MUST describe the stuff about lightning.

compare to ...
I was walking down the street, near the football field, when lightning struck a building and set it on fire.
--> now, "near the football field" has to describe the preceding stuff.

you should see whether you can concoct your own examples (which don't have to be, and ideally won't be, elaborate) that do this sort of thing.
if there are no such signals, then, in general, the "default setting" is that modifiers are intended to describe the stuff that comes right before them. again, this is not necessarily true 100.0000000% of the time, because english (like any other language) has to be flexible enough to express lots and lots and lots of different ideas, but it's certainly true most of the time.
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by souvik101990 » Mon Oct 29, 2012 5:47 am
I see a lot of rules and grammar here and Ron is never wrong. I will jut throw in my thoughts
A group of FBI investigators, in connection with the 1975 disappearance of Teamsters leader Jimmy Hoffa, are searching a small area of a rural Milford Township horse farm.

A. A group of FBI investigators, in connection with the 1975 disappearance of Teamsters leader Jimmy Hoffa, are searching a small area of a rural Milford Township horse farm.

B. A group of FBI investigators, in connection with the 1975 disappearance of Teamsters leader Jimmy Hoffa, is searching a rural Milford Township horse farm, a small area within.

C. A group of FBI investigators, searching a small area of a rural Milford Township horse farm, is connected with the 1975 disappearance of Teamsters leader Jimmy Hoffa.

D. A group of FBI investigators, in connection with the 1975 disappearance of Teamsters leader Jimmy Hoffa, is searching a small area of a rural Milford Township horse farm.

E. A small area of a rural Milford Township horse farm is being searched by a group of FBI investigators in connection with the 1975 disappearance of Teamsters leader Jimmy Hoffa

Doing a lot of difficult(meaning based if you want to call that), I felt that its best to understand modifiers by doing a lot of official examples and develop a gmat-ear.
Reading D, I could clearly see the phrase is telling something about the FBI investigators which could not be correct, and I needed a sentence which uses the same phrase modifying some kind of an action. E did exactly that.
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by lunarpower » Mon Oct 29, 2012 5:57 am
souvik101990 wrote:and Ron is never wrong.
lol
... if only.
Doing a lot of difficult(meaning based if you want to call that), I felt that its best to understand modifiers by doing a lot of official examples and develop a gmat-ear.
Reading D, I could clearly see the phrase is telling something about the FBI investigators which could not be correct, and I needed a sentence which uses the same phrase modifying some kind of an action. E did exactly that.
from what you've written here, it appears that you're studying in a very effective way.
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by souvik101990 » Mon Oct 29, 2012 6:44 am
Thanks Ron
I remember the time when I was just studying rules and attempting questions. Well it helped, but not generally beyond V32-V36 or something like that.
Then I saw your post and I tried working on the strategy to spend a lot of time on each official question.
I found out something amazing
Almost all GMAT incorrect answer choices has more than one stuff wrong with them.
For example there was this question (i do not remember exactly) which contained twice, double, twice as much, twice as many and doubling and all of us in various forums were debating over which construction was correct. Almost all of us missed there was a has/had/did issue at the end which provided a much easier way to solve a problem.
Hope this strategy helps others as well.
Souvik
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by lunarpower » Sat Nov 24, 2012 11:14 am
souvik101990 wrote:Thanks Ron
I remember the time when I was just studying rules and attempting questions. Well it helped, but not generally beyond V32-V36 or something like that.
Then I saw your post and I tried working on the strategy to spend a lot of time on each official question.
I found out something amazing
Almost all GMAT incorrect answer choices has more than one stuff wrong with them.
For example there was this question (i do not remember exactly) which contained twice, double, twice as much, twice as many and doubling and all of us in various forums were debating over which construction was correct. Almost all of us missed there was a has/had/did issue at the end which provided a much easier way to solve a problem.
Hope this strategy helps others as well.
Souvik
yes.

on a related note, everybody seems to hate sentence correction problems on which the entire sentence is underlined. instead, you should actually love those, for two different reasons:
1/ they are the only problems on which you don't have to keep looking back up at the original sentence, to see how each answer choice meshes with the non-underlined part;
2/ because the underlined part is so long, there are usually several things wrong with each incorrect answer choice.
Ron has been teaching various standardized tests for 20 years.

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