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Repairing vs repair of

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by hja379 » Sun Feb 06, 2011 7:04 am
yellowho wrote:What is the difference between A and C here. How come "repairing" doesn't work here?
I am stumped. Waiting for experts' view on this.
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by e-GMAT » Sun Feb 06, 2011 11:35 am
When you read the sentence, what is the PROJECT that the author is talking about?
Is project = historical Cathedral?
Is project = repair of historical Cathedral.?

The difference between choices A and C stems from this understanding. The author clearly talks about the repair of historical Cathedral as the project.

Now in Choice A, the construction is such that the modifier "project that took" refers to "historical Cathedral". This is not logical and hence Choice A is incorrect.
...repairing the historical Cathedral, a project that took...

In Choice C, the construction - the construction is such that the modifier refers to the repair.
...repair of the historical Cathedral, a project that took...

Note that a noun modifier only modifies noun or a noun phrase- in case of Choice A, Cathedral is the noun. in case of Choice C, repair of Cathedral is a complete noun phrase.

To cement the understanding of this concept, I suggest you check out question 48 in OG12.

Thanks,

Payal
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by GMATMadeEasy » Mon Feb 07, 2011 6:31 am
e-GMAT wrote:When you read the sentence, what is the PROJECT that the author is talking about?
Is project = historical Cathedral?
Is project = repair of historical Cathedral.?

The difference between choices A and C stems from this understanding. The author clearly talks about the repair of historical Cathedral as the project.

Now in Choice A, the construction is such that the modifier "project that took" refers to "historical Cathedral". This is not logical and hence Choice A is incorrect.
...repairing the historical Cathedral, a project that took...

In Choice C, the construction - the construction is such that the modifier refers to the repair.
...repair of the historical Cathedral, a project that took...

Note that a noun modifier only modifies noun or a noun phrase- in case of Choice A, Cathedral is the noun. in case of Choice C, repair of Cathedral is a complete noun phrase.

To cement the understanding of this concept, I suggest you check out question 48 in OG12.

Thanks,

Payal
@Payal: I agree with your reasoning about the meaning that project is "to repair cathedral";however,the answer choice A communicates uses gerund "repairing historic Cathedral" and
project clerly and rather more clearly refers to the act of reparing the building but building itself.


Could you please confirm to make sure i am not mistaken in my reasoning. i have gone through OG12 Q48
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by e-GMAT » Mon Feb 07, 2011 7:06 am
Notice the constructions in Q48 of OG12:

ABC - ...translation of the Illiad, a work that...
DE - ...translating the Illiad, a word that...

Per OG12 explanation, the modifier modifies "translation of the Illiad" - the complete noun phrase. (In choices ABC)
And it modifies the nearest noun - Illiad in Choices DE.
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by e-GMAT » Mon Feb 07, 2011 7:14 am
To add a bit more: remember that for parallelism we have the following rule:

verb-ing object is not parallel to noun phrase
but
verb-ing of object is parallel to noun phrase

So just extend that thought to this case in point of modification
In the construction:
verb-ing object, appositive - appositive modifies object and not the verb-ing object.

I hope this makes sense. Sorry for not having a more straightforward reply.

Thanks,

Payal
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by GMATMadeEasy » Mon Feb 07, 2011 7:23 am
Thank you very much.

So take away is one should use prepositional phrase as modifier instead of gerund phrase when using an appostive to describe something that might be ambiguous.

"repair of cathedral , a project that .." (correct) ; a project refers to the whole thing repair of cathedral
"translation of Iliad, a work that .." (correct)

Quesion -> can this construction be used to refer to cathedral or Ilaid if need be? trying to look for different possibilities.

"repairing cathedral , a project that .." (incorrect); a project refers to cathedral here.
"translating Iliad, a work that .." (Incorrect) ; a work refers to Iliad here .
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