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by gmat_perfect » Sun Sep 05, 2010 11:45 am
New items developed for automobiles in the 1997 Model year included safer Air bag, which, unlike previous Air bags, eliminated the possibility that a burst of smoke would appear when the bag inflated, and making an already terrified passenger think the car was on Fire.

A.inflated, and making
B.inflated, so that it could make
C.inflated and made
D.inflated and make
E.inflated to make

[spoiler]OA: Debated between D and E:[/spoiler]

I have thought in the following way:

eliminated the possibility [that a burst of smoke would appear (when the bag inflated )to make already terrified passenger think the car was on fire

Hence, in my opinion the answer is E.

What do the experts think?

please explain.

Thanks.
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by niksworth » Sun Sep 05, 2010 12:25 pm
Going by your logic, the core of the sentence would be - Safer Air bags eliminated the possibility to make the passenger think something.

Here, possibility to is unidiomatic. Correct idiom is possibility of.

In that form, the correct sentence would be - Safer Air bags eliminated the possibility of making the passenger think something.

D is right. D says - Safer Air bags eliminated the possibility that a burst of smoke would appear when the bag inflated and make already terrified passenger think the car was on fire.

Note the perfect parallelism in play here (in red).
scio me nihil scire
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by FightWithGMAT » Sun Sep 05, 2010 1:39 pm
gmat_perfect wrote:New items developed for automobiles in the 1997 Model year included safer Air bag, which, unlike previous Air bags, eliminated the possibility that a burst of smoke would appear when the bag inflated, and making an already terrified passenger think the car was on Fire.

A.inflated, and making
B.inflated, so that it could make
C.inflated and made
D.inflated and make
E.inflated to make

[spoiler]OA: Debated between D and E:[/spoiler]

I have thought in the following way:

eliminated the possibility [that a burst of smoke would appear (when the bag inflated )to make already terrified passenger think the car was on fire

Hence, in my opinion the answer is E.

What do the experts think?

please explain.

Thanks.
IMO E.

Th e2 ideas are related. Terrifying of passenger is not a separate idea but is an affect of bursting of smoke.
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by gmat_perfect » Sun Sep 05, 2010 2:03 pm
niksworth wrote:Going by your logic, the core of the sentence would be - Safer Air bags eliminated the possibility to make the passenger think something.

Here, possibility to is unidiomatic. Correct idiom is possibility of.

In that form, the correct sentence would be - Safer Air bags eliminated the possibility of making the passenger think something.

D is right. D says - Safer Air bags eliminated the possibility that a burst of smoke would appear when the bag inflated and make already terrified passenger think the car was on fire.

Note the perfect parallelism in play here (in red).

====> Possibility to" is NOT wrong. I have seen such uses in New York Times.

Examples:

No, the gulf oil spill is not Obama's Katrina. It's his 9/11 - and it is disappointing to see him making the same mistake George W. Bush made with his 9/11. Sept. 11, 2001, was one of those rare seismic events that create the possibility to energize the country to do something really important and lasting that is too hard to do in normal times.

Then, as now, most of the region relied on Russia for its oil and gas. The pipelines built by the former Soviet Union during the 1960s and 1970s ran from east to west, tying the Soviet empire into a tight and seamless bind. Before the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, energy supplies to Eastern Europe were reliable and heavily subsidized. There was neither the possibility to diversify nor the need to.

So Russia - here is a possibility to make something happen. Here is a possibility to finally do something to the utmost.

I know the following two are more often used:

==> Possibility THAT + Clause
==> Possibility of + NOUN

Thanks for the reply.
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by scorpionz » Sun Sep 05, 2010 9:20 pm
One more vote for D..

Parallel structure and clear meaning in my opinion..

What's the OA?
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by paes » Sun Sep 05, 2010 10:21 pm
IMO D


D is saying that : 2 possibilities are eliminated :
a burst of smoke
1) would appear when the bag inflated, AND
2) would make already terrified passenger think the car was on Fire.

E says :

eliminated the possibility that :
a burst of smoke would appear when the bag inflated to make already terrified passenger think the car was on Fire.

when you say : to make already terrified passenger think the car was on Fire. "

it seems that it was the purpose of the act, which doesn't make sense here.
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by ankurmit » Sun Sep 05, 2010 10:44 pm
IMO D
--------
Ankur mittal
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by e-GMAT » Sun Sep 05, 2010 10:58 pm
Original Sentence
...air bag, which eliminated the possibility that a burst of smoke would appear when the bag inflated, and making an already terrified passenger think the car was on fire.

The intended meaning of the original sentence is that the safer air bags eliminated a certain possibility. It further explains this possibility - a burst of smoke would appear when bag inflated. And this action would make an already terrified passenger to think that the car was on fire.

I will only concentrate on the meaning aspect of this sentence since you have doubts pertaining to the meaning.

D.inflated and make
E.inflated to make

Between choices D and E, clear D communicates the intended meaning. It states the correct sequence of events and connects the two verbs using "and". When the bag inflated, a burst of smoke would appear and make an already terrified...
Choice E is grammatically correct but it changes the intended meaning of the sentence. The sentence now implies that the purpose of smoke to appear was to make the passenger think that the car was on fire. The original sentence does not intend to establish this purpose or intent.

Thus, Choice D should be the correct answer since it communicates the intended meaning without introducing any grammatical errors.

I hope this helps.

Regards,

Payal
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by prepgmat09 » Sun Sep 05, 2010 11:03 pm
I agree with paes. infinitives are used to show the intention.

e.g.

1. Airline workers went on a strike to cause a major delay in air traffic.

This sentence means that workers in fact intended to cause an air traffic delay.

2. Airline workers went on a strike, causing a major delay in air traffic .

Here, the workers just went on strike. Traffic delay was a consequence that was not intended.

Coming to the sentence under discussion:

New items developed for automobiles in the 1997 Model year included safer Air bag, which, unlike previous Air bags, eliminated the possibility that a burst of smoke would appear when the bag inflated, and making an already terrified passenger think the car was on Fire.

New items eliminated the following two possibilities:
1. a burst of smoke would appear

and subsequently this burst of smoke

2. would make an already terrified passenger think the car was on Fire

Neither the "smoke" nor the "bag" intends to "make an already terrified passenger think". So, infinitive construction is not correct.

D makes this clear by making the two verbs "appear" and "make" parallel and joining the two verbs using the conjuction "and". The common subject of these two verbs is "smoke", and this makes sense.

IMO D.
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by girishj » Thu Apr 21, 2016 4:33 am
Why would C be wrong?
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