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by jats » Mon Apr 11, 2011 3:57 pm
Originally developed for detecting air pollutants, a technique called proton-induced x-ray emission, which can quickly analyze the chemical elements in almost any substance without destroying it, is finding uses in medicine, archaeology, and criminology.

(A) Originally developed for detecting air pollutants, a technique called proton-induced x-ray emission, which can quickly analyze the chemical elements in almost any substance without destroying it,
(B) Originally developed for detecting air pollutants, having the ability to analyze the chemical elements in almost any substance without destroying it, a technique called proton induced x-ray emission
(C) A technique originally developed for detecting air pollutants, called proton-induced x-ray emission, which can quickly analyze the chemical elements in almost any substance without destroying it,
(D) A technique originally developed for detecting air pollutants, called proton-induced x-ray emission, which has the ability to analyze the chemical elements in almost any substance quickly and without destroying it,
(E) A technique that was originally developed for detecting air pollutants and has the ability to analyze the chemical elements in almost any substance quickly and without destroying the substance, called proton-induced x-ray emission,

Please let me know if an expert can provide an explanation to this SC. I am not sure of the correct answer since I picked it up from another post.

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by HSPA » Mon Apr 11, 2011 6:46 pm
Modifier, and A > C for me

B has misplaced modifier, D is wordy with quickly and without destroying, E is passive
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Second take: coming soon..
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by atulmangal » Mon Apr 11, 2011 6:53 pm
IMO A

Its an OG question

My technique:-- First b/w Op A and B i eliminated Op B....What originally developed???---technique...so Op A is correct b/w A and B

Now Come to Op E:-- "HAS THE ABILITY"---> REDUNDANT use CAN, also i think this choice violates THAT THAT parallelism...after AND a THAT is required to maintain parallelism...moreover the use AND in "substance quickly AND without destroying " is incorrect and distorts the meaning...

Now b/w C and D:-- drop Op D, as in D, the relative clause WHICH has redundancy..."has the ability" is redundant..."can" expresses the same meaning as in Op C, also Op D contains "substance quickly and without destroying" as discussed in above point incorrect

So now compare b/w Op A and C:--Op A is much much clear...why??? In Op A, which refers to noun phrase "a technique called proton-induced x-ray emission" while in Op C, is only refers to "emission" which makes its meaning less clear.

Also the construction of Op A...Modifier..clause...relative clause..is good
Last edited by atulmangal on Tue Apr 12, 2011 9:54 am, edited 1 time in total.
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by HSPA » Mon Apr 11, 2011 8:58 pm
Hi Atul,

Regarding your explanation...
In C 'which' is refering to technique I beleive... I shall refer to proton gun..
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by mundasingh123 » Mon Apr 11, 2011 10:57 pm
https://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2011/01/ ... al-phrases
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by atulmangal » Tue Apr 12, 2011 4:13 am
HSPA wrote:Hi Atul,

Regarding your explanation...
In C 'which' is refering to technique I beleive... I shall refer to proton gun..
Hi HSPA,

In OP C, "WHICH" can not refer to technique....How it can be??? Not at all possible---my opinion.
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by aspirant2011 » Tue Apr 12, 2011 9:28 am
yup agree with atul, in C "which" cant refer to technique because "which" always refers to the closest noun.............
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by mundasingh123 » Wed Apr 13, 2011 8:20 am
atulmangal wrote:IMO A



So now compare b/w Op A and C:--Op A is much much clear...why??? In Op A, which refers to noun phrase "a technique called proton-induced x-ray emission" while in Op C, is only refers to "emission" which makes its meaning less clear.

Also the construction of Op A...Modifier..clause...relative clause..is good
1)As per Staceys post @
https://www.manhattangmat.com/forums/og- ... t1277.html

the which pronoun can refer to a noun phrase whereas what i read was the which pronoun can only refer to the closest noun.
2)Also whats wrong with the which clause modifying x-ray emission.The word is x-ray emission and not only emission.
3)does the past participle modifier "c ... correct
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by atulmangal » Wed Apr 13, 2011 8:45 am
@Mundasing

As u said WHICH can refer to the noun phrase and thats what it is doing in Op A, which makes this choice more meaningful and clear...the main motive of the sentence is to describe the subject TECHNIQUE...as you can see, the WHICH clause is important and describing the role...so its better if that role described by the WHICH clause refer to the noun phrase rather than just emission...

Regarding the use of WHICH, i mentioned in one of my earlier post that its not necessary that which always refer to closest noun...see below, i copied and pasted the same

For the people who don't know...surprise

Please don't think that 'which' can refer to only the nearest noun... this rule is not at all true as per GMAT......see the below explanation

Example:-

The High Court's rulings in the cases involving assisted suicides among college-going teens from single-parent families, which were overturned by the Supreme Court last month, have been re-instituted by a special interventionist order by the President.

Here WHICH clearly refers to the RULINGS as that is the only eligible noun for the VERB 'WERE overturned'.

All you have to be cautious about is that there is no VERB between WHICH and its ANTECEDENT ('rulings' in this case)...

rulings (n) in the cases (n) involving (adj) assisted (adj) suicides (n) among college-going (adj) teens (n) from single-parent (adj) families (n), which

So in this case, WHICH clearly refers to RULINGS.

Hope this post really help to the people who don't know this fact.
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by lunarpower » Thu Apr 14, 2011 2:59 am
well, this is an official problem, so it's pointless to question it -- the goal should be to learn from it.

i think that the escape hatch here is the fact that "proton-induced x-ray emission" can also be considered a legitimate antecedent for "which", because that descriptor is also accurate for describing the process of proton-induced x-ray emission.

in any case, this construction is probably best to remember as a special, exceptional construction -- i.e., if you ever see "an x called y" or "an x known as y", etc., again, then you know that "which" can legitimately stand for these things.

--

in general, though, it's best to be a little bit more cautious, and to follow a rule that "which" should stand for either
1) the closest noun, or
2) the closest noun + prepositional phrase,
unless there is more explicit official evidence to the contrary. again, i wouldn't necessarily view this problem as evidence to the contrary, because "proton-induced x-ray emission" itself isn't totally wrong as an antecedent.

in fact, the best way to go here might be just to think of "an x called y" or "an x known as y" as a single word.
this isn't very farfetched; you should already be thinking of "proton-induced x-ray emission" as a single noun -- the same way that you should consider any other large groups of words that clearly refer to a single entity. for instance, "the supreme court of the united states of america" should also be considered a single noun.
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by lunarpower » Thu Apr 14, 2011 3:05 am
atul,
Please don't think that 'which' can refer to only the nearest noun... this rule is not at all true as per GMAT......see the below explanation

Example:-

The High Court's rulings in the cases involving assisted suicides among college-going teens from single-parent families, which were overturned by the Supreme Court last month, have been re-instituted by a special interventionist order by the President.

Here WHICH clearly refers to the RULINGS as that is the only eligible noun for the VERB 'WERE overturned'.

All you have to be cautious about is that there is no VERB between WHICH and its ANTECEDENT ('rulings' in this case)...
quality control time
where did you get this example? please don't claim that sentences from third-party sources are "from the gmat"; such claims detract from the authenticity of genuinely official problems posted on the site.

this sentence is very obviously not from an official source -- not only is it clearly contrived to stack as many prepositional phrases as possible without a break, but, more importantly, it wasn't written by an american; it has several distinctive marks of indian english, most notably "college-going teens" (a phrase that would practically never be heard in the english of any country except india).

in fact, google only finds that sentence in two places -- this post, and another one on this forum that is identical to this one. did you make up this sentence yourself?
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by mundasingh123 » Thu Apr 14, 2011 4:10 am
Thanks Ron for clearing the air on the which clause .
I have 1 more doubt regarding this SC,Ron
3)does the past participle modifier "called x-ray emission" which follows a comma in C,D wrong because it is supposed to modifify technique and therefore should be as close as possible to it without a comma in between
But if you consider the following sentence
Jack jumped into the gym,excited at the prospect of preparing for the olympics.
The word excited is far away from Jack,yet the sentence IMO is correct
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by lunarpower » Sat Apr 16, 2011 4:29 pm
mundasingh123 wrote:Thanks Ron for clearing the air on the which clause .
I have 1 more doubt regarding this SC,Ron
3)does the past participle modifier "called x-ray emission" which follows a comma in C,D wrong because it is supposed to modifify technique and therefore should be as close as possible to it without a comma in between
But if you consider the following sentence
Jack jumped into the gym,excited at the prospect of preparing for the olympics.
The word excited is far away from Jack,yet the sentence IMO is correct
that's a whole different thing.

when COMMA + PARTICIPLE is placed after a whole clause, it generally modifies the whole clause.
the participle should relate most directly to the subject of the clause -- e.g., jack is the one who is "excited" in the example above -- but the participle should in some way modify the entire idea of the clause. this is how the above example works: "excited at the prospect..." doesn't just describe jack, it describes the entire way in which jack jumped into the gym.

when COMMA + PARTICIPLE is placed after just a noun (or noun + modifiers) -- as in the case of the x-ray emission problem -- then it's talking about a noun.
Ron has been teaching various standardized tests for 20 years.

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by atulmangal » Sat Apr 16, 2011 6:41 pm
lunarpower wrote:atul,
Please don't think that 'which' can refer to only the nearest noun... this rule is not at all true as per GMAT......see the below explanation

Example:-

The High Court's rulings in the cases involving assisted suicides among college-going teens from single-parent families, which were overturned by the Supreme Court last month, have been re-instituted by a special interventionist order by the President.

Here WHICH clearly refers to the RULINGS as that is the only eligible noun for the VERB 'WERE overturned'.

All you have to be cautious about is that there is no VERB between WHICH and its ANTECEDENT ('rulings' in this case)...
quality control time
where did you get this example? please don't claim that sentences from third-party sources are "from the gmat"; such claims detract from the authenticity of genuinely official problems posted on the site.

this sentence is very obviously not from an official source -- not only is it clearly contrived to stack as many prepositional phrases as possible without a break, but, more importantly, it wasn't written by an american; it has several distinctive marks of indian english, most notably "college-going teens" (a phrase that would practically never be heard in the english of any country except india).

in fact, google only finds that sentence in two places -- this post, and another one on this forum that is identical to this one. did you make up this sentence yourself?
@Ron

Thanks for your post.
These examples are not my personal examples, i learned these concepts from a faculties' personal notes. I'm sure you are correct about what you stated in your post, as you are an American faculty (also, one of the most respected one). But, can you please clear my doubt for this example:

The box of nails, which is on the counter, is to be used on this project.

Now first of all, as per my information the above example is correct..m i right???if so, then if i apply the rules related to WHICH (mentioned in my post) then WHICH is referring to BOX not NAILS...and in terms of meaning this seems correct

But if i apply the rules stated in your post
"which" should stand for either
1) the closest noun, or
2) the closest noun + prepositional phrase,
In that case, which is referring to i think "box of nails" and this is also meaningful. Please correct me if m wrong???
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by rohu27 » Sat Apr 16, 2011 6:43 pm
when COMMA + PARTICIPLE is placed after just a noun (or noun + modifiers) -- as in the case of the x-ray emission problem -- then it's talking about a noun
Thanks Ron,
just to summarize for my understanding, in this sentence "called proton-induced x-ray emission" is modifying the noun " a technique ", so ideally it should be as close as possiblt to the noun. and i will trust meaning to know whether it is modifying the noun or the entire clause(As in example given by mundasingh) -> is this correct?
also on the basis of this can i eliminate options C,D and E straight away?
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