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History shows that

by akhpad » Mon Jun 07, 2010 3:21 am
Source: Master The GMAT 2010 [Peterson's]

History shows that while simultaneously attaining global or even regional dominance, a country generally succumbs to erosion of its social infrastructure.

A: History shows that while simultaneously attaining
B: History would show that, while attaining
C: History bears out that, in the course of attaining
D: During the course of history, the attainment of
E: Throughout history, during any country's attaining

OA: C

Please explain.
Last edited by akhpad on Wed Jun 09, 2010 10:28 am, edited 2 times in total.
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by vijay_venky » Mon Jun 07, 2010 4:41 am
My pick is C.

I think the question stem is redundant, otherwise the structure is correct.
This problem has been addressed in C.

Please correct me if I'm wrong
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by akhpad » Mon Jun 07, 2010 8:35 am
Yes

Can someone elaborate it?
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by uwhusky » Mon Jun 07, 2010 8:43 am
I think "process of elimination" is what I would use to attack this question. I don't necessary like the way answer C is written, but all the other choices have pretty strong errors.
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by ramprakaashk » Tue Jun 08, 2010 6:46 pm
Can anyone pls tell what is the wrong with choice B above ?
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by vinay89 » Wed Jun 09, 2010 1:28 pm
yes...could someone please explain why B is wrong?
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by Stacey Koprince » Tue Jun 15, 2010 11:58 am
Received a PM asking me to reply. akhp77, you posted the problem originally (and sent me the PM), but you did not explain at all what you think about this problem or what your questions are. Please read this article about how best to use the forums; what you just did (posting the problem and not saying anything about your own thinking) is not the best way to use the forums.

https://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2010/05/ ... the-forums

Others did post some questions, though, so let's discuss those. Interesting structure. Core:

History shows that a country succumbs to erosion.
Subj-Verb-THAT-Subj-Verb-Object.

Other stuff = modifiers.

You'd want a pair of commas to set of the "while...dominance" modifier, but there's a comma missing at the beginning of that modifier.

I have to say at this point that I'm not a fan of the problem. There's a particular meaning to the original sentence and that meaning is not maintained in the correct answer. There is nothing absolutely wrong with the meaning in the original, so there's no reason to change that meaning. I'm also struggling to recall a time when an official GMAT problem has used very colloquial language such as "bears out." So I don't think I would continue studying this particular problem.

B changes the tense from "shows" to "would show." That's future conditional - the future would show this... if something else were true or happened? What is that something else? I don't know. It's not in the sentence.

I would skip work tomorrow.
I would skip work tomorrow if I could get away with it.
I would skip work tomorrow but I have too much to do.

The latter two examples are okay because I'm showing the conditional. The first isn't okay - You would skip work tomorrow if what, or but what? The thought is incomplete.
Please note: I do not use the Private Messaging system! I will not see any PMs that you send to me!!

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