karthikpandian19 wrote:In surprising medical news, scientists investigating long-term effects of stroke are reporting that injury to a specific part of the brain, located behind the ear, can instantly and permanently break a smoking habit.
(A) brain, located behind the ear, can instantly and permanently break a smoking habit
(B) brain located behind the ear can instantly and permanently break a smoking habit
(C) brain, located behind the ear, can instantly and permanently break the habit of smoking
(D) brain located behind the ear, can instantly and permanently break a smoking habit
(E) brain, the one located behind the ear, can instantly and permanently break the habit of smoking
I'm happy to add my 2¢ to this discussion.
First of all, this is a picayune pain-in-the-keister SC question, which gets much more meticulous and niggling than the GMAT ever does.
Issues
1) "
...that injury to a specific part of the brain, located behind ..." --- comma or no comma?
The modifying phrase "located behind ...." is a non-vital modifier. See these two posts for more detail on that distinction.
a)
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2012/that-vs-which-on-the-gmat/
b)
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2012/gmat-gramm ... modifiers/
Vital noun modifiers have no comma-breaks separating them from the rest of the sentence. Non-vital noun modifier require the comma. This is a non-vital modifier, so the comma is essential. (B) and (D) are out right away.
2) (E) is pure nonsense.
"
... injury to a specific part of the brain, the one located behind the ear, ..."
Half the cerebral cortex, as well as the entirety of the cerebellum and the medulla oblongata, are all "behind the ear." We have thousands upon thousands of discernible "parts" of the brain that are posterior to the ear. The brain is far more complex than, say, a cell phone, and a cell phone (smaller than the entire region of the skull behind the ear) clearly has more than one "part" in order to function. Therefore, the idea that there is only "one part" of the brain behind the ear is patently absurd.
(E) is really kind of a throwaway answer --- they couldn't think of anything stronger, so they simply put something ridiculous for (E). Sometimes that even happens in GMAC questions.
Those two considerations narrow us down to (A) & (C), and the only difference is
(A) ...
break a smoking habit
(C) ...
break the habit of smoking
No real SC question on the GMAT is going to depend a split this flimsy. This is a poorly written question designed to explore some esoteric point that book was covering. This is NOT the style of GMAC question.
First of all, both "smoking habit" and "habit of smoking" are 100% correct, so there's no distinction there. The distinction appears to be between the indefinite article "a" vs. the definite article "the". Again, I have never never ever seen a GMAT SC question depend only on this distinction between correct and incorrect answer choices.
Frankly, I could see a good argument for either choice --- the indefinite article "a smoking habit" or "a habit of smoking" because we are talking about that person's habit, not another's persons habit; or the definite article "the smoking habit" or "the habit of smoking", because there's only one such habit. From
Kasia@MasterGMAT's post above, I infer that what Kaplan had in mind is --- there's only one kind of "smoking habit", not a variety, so the definite article would have to be correct. I assume [spoiler](C)[/spoiler] is the answer that Kaplan valorizes.
I would say: this is not a good GMAT question. Splits between definite/indefinite articles may play out in a GMAT SC question, but only along side other splits, and it's the combination of splits that help you determine a correct answer. This question hinges, ultimately, on just this isolated split, and I would argue, there's not a solid grammatical/logic argument that can definitively justify one choice to the exclusion of the other.
Here's a SC question that better reflects the structure and logic of typical GMAT SC questions:
https://gmat.magoosh.com/questions/1089
When you submit your answer to that, the next page will have a complete video solution.
Does all this make sense? Please let me know if anyone reading this has any questions.
Mike
