SC question - US submarines

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SC question - US submarines

by GMIHIR » Thu Apr 05, 2012 4:16 am
As U.S. nuclear attack submarines prowl their familiar haunts deep within the oceans of the world these days, they increasingly are engaged in missions far different from the tasks for which they were built and for which their crews were trained over the last forty years.

(A) they increasingly are engaged in missions far different from the tasks for which they were built
(B) the missions they increasingly engage in are far different than the tasks they were built for
(C) they engage increasingly in missions that differ significantly from the tasks they were built for
(D) the missions they engage in are increasingly different than the tasks for which they were built
(E) they increasingly engage in missions far different than the tasks for which they were built

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by nileshdalvi » Thu Apr 05, 2012 6:21 am
Its A.

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by Bill@VeritasPrep » Thu Apr 05, 2012 6:44 am
(A) correct
(B) "different than" is incorrect
(C) should end in "for which they were built" to be parallel to "for which their crews were trained
(D) "different than" is incorrect
(E) "different than" is incorrect

I actually like the start of E ("they increasingly engage") more than that of A ("they increasingly are engaged"), but that's more of a stylistic consideration and isn't enough to outweigh E's incorrect comparison idiom.
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by ice_rush » Fri Apr 06, 2012 10:17 am
Hi Bill,
I picked E over A to keep everything in simple present tense...they increasingly engage as opposed to.. are engaged - Can you comment on the difference?

So basically, this sentence boils down to straight up idiom memorization?





Thanks!

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by shubhamkumar » Fri Apr 06, 2012 11:22 am
ice_rush wrote:Hi Bill,
I picked E over A to keep everything in simple present tense...they increasingly engage as opposed to.. are engaged - Can you comment on the difference?

So basically, this sentence boils down to straight up idiom memorization?





Thanks!
Its idiom memorization and parallelism.Only A and C use differ/ent from.But A is correct since for which ...and for which is parallel in A

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by Bill@VeritasPrep » Fri Apr 06, 2012 12:14 pm
ice_rush wrote:Hi Bill,
I picked E over A to keep everything in simple present tense...they increasingly engage as opposed to.. are engaged - Can you comment on the difference?

So basically, this sentence boils down to straight up idiom memorization?





Thanks!
It's a great example of using the true grammatical errors before dealing with idioms. Since we have "for which their crews were trained," the first part should also start with "for which." A, D, and E get this correct. D is incorrect because it uses "increasingly" to modify "different," which changes the meaning of the sentence. You can use the idiom when you get down to A and E. Different from/than is a fairly common one, so it's definitely worth knowing.
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by GMIHIR » Sun Apr 08, 2012 9:09 pm
Thank you all! Thanks Bill for the great explaination.!