Expression

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sukrant26: Senior | Next Rank: 100 Posts; Posts: 51; Joined: Sun Mar 23, 2008 6:54 pm; Location: San Francisco; Thanked: 2 times

Expression

by sukrant26 » Sun Apr 06, 2008 4:34 pm

[u]The lady I bought the car from is soon leaving for the U.S.[/u]

(A) The lady I bought the car from is soon leaving for the U.S.

(B) The lady I bought the car from will soon have left for the U.S.

(C) The lady whom bought the car from is soon leaving for the U.S.

(D) The lady from whom I bought the car is soon leaving for the U.S.

(E) The lady is soon leaving for the U.S. from whom I bought the car.

Is the expression "The lady I bought the car from" is preferable over "The lady from whom I bough the car". Please explain

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Source: Beat The GMAT — Sentence Correction | Sun Apr 06, 2008 4:34 pm

ritz: Senior | Next Rank: 100 Posts; Posts: 59; Joined: Sat Mar 08, 2008 5:15 pm; Location: Cincinnati; Thanked: 3 times

Re: Expression

by ritz » Mon Apr 07, 2008 12:12 pm

sukrant26 wrote:The lady I bought the car from is soon leaving for the U.S.

(A) The lady I bought the car from is soon leaving for the U.S.

(B) The lady I bought the car from will soon have left for the U.S.

(C) The lady whom bought the car from is soon leaving for the U.S.

(D) The lady from whom I bought the car is soon leaving for the U.S.

(E) The lady is soon leaving for the U.S. from whom I bought the car.

Is the expression "The lady I bought the car from" is preferable over "The lady from whom I bough the car". Please explain

very interesting question..
i would go with D, because i think we need to separate out the Subject & the Modifier, & whom does that quite beautifully...
what's the right answer?
Ritz

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lalitgmat: Senior | Next Rank: 100 Posts; Posts: 33; Joined: Thu Jul 05, 2007 1:28 pm

by lalitgmat » Mon Apr 07, 2008 1:10 pm

When there is NO punctuation mark ( in this comma ), does not (D) sound like the CAR is movinf to US in lieu of Lady.
I feel (E) is better.

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ritz: Senior | Next Rank: 100 Posts; Posts: 59; Joined: Sat Mar 08, 2008 5:15 pm; Location: Cincinnati; Thanked: 3 times

by ritz » Mon Apr 07, 2008 4:27 pm

lalitgmat wrote:When there is NO punctuation mark ( in this comma ), does not (D) sound like the CAR is movinf to US in lieu of Lady.
I feel (E) is better.

E is definitely not the answer as it seems to be modifying US.
The lady is soon leaving for the U.S from whom I bought the car.
see a parellal here..
the lady is soon meeting XYZ from whom I bought the car.
here lady is going to meet XYZ, a person, whom i am modifying by telling the readers that i bought the car from XYZ.
So going by this, E can not be correct.

what is the right answer Sukrant?

regards
Ritz

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sandeepdeb: Newbie | Next Rank: 10 Posts; Posts: 6; Joined: Fri Oct 12, 2007 1:29 am

by sandeepdeb » Tue Apr 08, 2008 2:07 am

I cannot see anything wrong with the actual line. the first option seems to be correct.

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sukrant26: Senior | Next Rank: 100 Posts; Posts: 51; Joined: Sun Mar 23, 2008 6:54 pm; Location: San Francisco; Thanked: 2 times

by sukrant26 » Tue Apr 08, 2008 9:27 pm

OA IS 'A'

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lunarpower: GMAT Instructor; Posts: 3380; Joined: Mon Mar 03, 2008 1:20 am; Thanked: 2256 times; Followed by:1535 members; GMAT Score:800

Re: Expression

by lunarpower » Wed Apr 09, 2008 2:37 am

sukrant26 wrote:The lady I bought the car from is soon leaving for the U.S.

(A) The lady I bought the car from is soon leaving for the U.S.

(B) The lady I bought the car from will soon have left for the U.S.

(C) The lady whom bought the car from is soon leaving for the U.S.

(D) The lady from whom I bought the car is soon leaving for the U.S.

(E) The lady is soon leaving for the U.S. from whom I bought the car.

Is the expression "The lady I bought the car from" is preferable over "The lady from whom I bough the car". Please explain

the construction in choice d - from whom... - is most certainly preferable to those found in the other choices:
* it's simply considered better writing;
* it's generally considered undesirable, although not strictly 'wrong', to have prepositions hanging at the ends of phrases (the lady i bought the car from).

if you want proof that the gmat feels this way, take a look at problem #16 in the purple OG verbal supplement (i'm not sure whether i'm allowed to reproduce problems from that source on this forum); note the answer explanations, which leave no doubt that the gmat prefers the same sort of construction used in choice (d) above: 'collateral against which ... ' is considered much better than 'collateral to borrow against'.

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incidentally:

i'm not sure which source this problem comes from (or, i should say, 'the source from which this problem comes')

but ... note that the gmat NEVER uses the first or second person. all of the sentences - and i mean all of them - are in the third person. so your time would be better spent studying sentence that are likewise in the third person, as opposed to first-person examples such as this one.

Ron has been teaching various standardized tests for 20 years.

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Stuart@KaplanGMAT: GMAT Instructor; Posts: 3225; Joined: Tue Jan 08, 2008 2:40 pm; Location: Toronto; Thanked: 1710 times; Followed by:614 members; GMAT Score:800

by Stuart@KaplanGMAT » Wed Apr 09, 2008 11:21 am

Please post the source of the question.

As Ron noted, "The lady from whom I bought the car" is 100% superior to the other choices.

Also as Ron noted, you won't see the first person on GMAT SC questions. I'm also pretty sure that I've never seen a question that tested dangling prepositions, which is what this question is all about (and if (a) is the accredited choice, then the question writer didn't even properly address that issue).